A few years back, a gynecologist told me that I am OCD and that I should go see someone.
Recently, I watched a man receiving a vaccination. It was northing out of the ordinary as far as these things go… so why did it bother me? Scenes such as these have always bothered me and put doubts in my mind as to the training that goes into protecting the public from the transmission of diseases by the medical community.
The nurse practitioner was wearing white gloves as “normal”.
She rolled up his sleeves, wiped a small area on the upper side of his arm with a piece of cotton that she had just dabbed with alcohol. She gave the man the shot and wiped his blood off with her gloved finger, and then she placed a band-aid on the area. After he left her station, she proceeded to the next person. She followed the same exact steps that she had performed with the previous man exactly, one after another.
What about the blood! I thought.
The blood that her gloved finger had wiped just went over the needle hole spot of the current patient. Is this safe?
The glove was never changed…
I realize I am ignorant about the consequence of that action. Perhaps the alcohol dabbed before giving the shot takes care of any disease that the previous person may have. Can they be sure? Perhaps I am just being OCD as that gynecologist once informed me.
Let me tell you about that and you can decide for yourself.
The gynecologist walked in to the office where I was sitting waiting uncomfortably. She opened the drawer, pulled out a fresh set of gloves and put them on her hands. She then looked over at where I was sitting, shaking her head disappointedly, ripped some paper that was dangling below me, saying something under her breath like “too long” or something to that extent, I wasn’t clear. I just got the feeling that she was disappointed with the person who set up the room before I came in. She opened the trash can, which was a bit over filled, with those freshly gloved hands, squished the papers into the trash can, closed the lid and pulled the sliding table full of tools and came forward to work on me.
A little concerned about seeing where her gloves had just been (outside the trashcan, inside the trashcan, having touched the papers that the people before me had sat on, etc. See I am OCD), I asked her if she wouldn’t mind changing those gloves before working on me. After all this was a gynecological appointment. She was a little put off, but changed her gloves, picked up the old gloves with her new gloved hands and then opened the trash can again, and pushed the gloves down again (the trash can was still full), closed the lid and came toward me.
I was aghast and did not want to be examined with those gloves… I politely asked if I could leave (blaming myself for being a clean freak) to which the doctor yelled, “you have OCD and should get some help!” I walked out of that office feeling ashamed for noticing too many details, offending the good doctor and went to my car where my husband was waiting and told him what just took place, fully ready to hear him get irritated with me for being such a clean freak… (I admit it, I am)… but to my surprise he thought that the doctor was completely inappropriate and was glad that I left the office without getting examined by her. That doctor’s office billed me over two hundred dollars for that visit, which I argued against and after a few years of going back and forth with them finally have it cleared.
I have often noticed this kind of cross contaminating in dentist offices as well… if I go into what I notice you will certainly think that I am OCD. But still being a self-proclaiming clean freak, I notice. Of course I also notice the sandwich makers in delis using the same gloves to make sandwiches, take cash, ring things up (and sometimes take the trash out, sweep the floor), and then go back to making the sandwiches. Even if they take the gloves off, they grab the gloves with dirty hands, the outside of which will touch our sandwiches. The solution would be washing their hands before putting on the gloves or just washing their hands after handling the cash and cash registers.
Perhaps I am OCD, or perhaps, the medical community is not thinking in detail of what these actions mean? Step by step of how diseases can be spread. If they were careful enough to not cross contaminate or take more mindful care of each patient, my friend would not have gotten a sponge left in him after a hip replacement surgery which then lead to his heart attack, or my sister-in-law would not have gotten staff infection during her birth, which prevented her from being able to nurse her son.
Perhaps they need someone with OCD to look over their procedures.
I am sure that medical community is not intentionally being careless about some of these things. But I just wonder… could they implement a more thought out training so the patients are protected the way, I am sure they want them to be? Can we trust that the current practice is safe enough for our kids?