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By: beleza_pura Postings: 5 From: n/a	Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 - 03:02 PM Good afternoon everyone, Recently I discovered that I am a carrier of hepatitis B and now there is a job opportunity in a nursing home. I know people in this condition should not work in contact with others. My question is this: there is another way I could work in my profession? Is there any condition for professionals working in health care. I must give up being a nurse? I really enjoy caring for others. Thanks for the advice
By: administrator Postings: 353 From: n/a	Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 - 04:26 PM Dear Beleza Can you explain how you got hbv if you are a nurse? You should have been vaccinated and protected when you started nursing. is it you are a practising nurse at the moment, or coming back after a 20 year career break? AS far as working with exposure prone patients many nurses take the medicines for hbv to remove their viral load then carry on when undetectable. If however you do not become undetectable, nursing is not a profession that can be enjoyed. My attitude when diagnosed was to run as far as I could with my viral load away from exposure prone procedures, feeling anyone but me should be doing this. Talk to your liver specialist about treatment and the Royal College of Nurses and individual occupational health departments about when it is safe to practice as requirements do vary. I was quite worried yesterday when a dental nurse rang and she has been given the go ahead even with a fluctuating viral load, so it is very variable. There again the same thing happening in a welsh hospital with a surgical nurse led to all the patients being called in for testing and a media hoo haa. Most of all if you are one of the many nurses who are practising and do have a viral load observe the strictest universal precautions. Plaster your every wound, most especially plaster wounds to the hands, Seriously use glove hygiene, scrub then glove and then deglove and seriously scrub. Do a serious scrub after dealing with your menstrual sanitary items. Use a mask or never talk over open wounds. If you do bleed hot hot water and or bleach all you can. be extra careful around special needs as they can accidently or purposely injure you. One nurse at a conference recently joked to me, you can spot the hep infected nurses from the way they do universal precautions. so finally Talk to your liver specialist about treatment and the Royal College of Nurses and individual occupational health departments about when it is safe to practice as requirements do vary. Paul
By: beleza_pura Postings: 5 From: n/a	Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 - 05:57 PM Thank you Paul for your kind response. I knew of my condition when I became pregnant in 2008. I finished the course in 2010 (in my country is four years). I took the test before and after I was vaccinated. I honestly do not know what happened. Fortunately my daughter is free froo this desease. Currently I´m not working because it has been difficult to find, both in my country and here in England. I have been very cautious about it, both at home and abroad. What I understood from your answer is to talk to competent people, right? The specialist advised me to have periodic visits to check the liver because I'm at the stage where I don´t need medical treatment. Do you think I should not work as a nurse? Can I work as a health visitor? Thank you
By: administrator Postings: 353 From: n/a	Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 - 09:06 PM Dear Beleza I am amazed a college of nursing has possibly wasted 3 years of your life teaching you skills they knew you cannot use without expensive medicines that do not always work, I am just amazed. Did no one explain how infectious hbv is in a exposure prone role? Did your liver specialist know what you are studying? What country are you in? Caution would mean vaccinating every family member including mum dad brothers and sisters and every living companion and every lover in the UK and where you are now. Caution would mean not wanting to be anywhere near a patient with wounds until you are hbv undetectable. All that can be done now is to get youe specialist to give you treatment and see if you become undetectable for hbv and then to see if a healthcare provider will take you on. As I said you need to talk through with your specialist your need to go undetectable, however in many countries the meds are too expensive for nurses so the career becomes impossible. I really feel for you the whole hbv issue needed attention before you studied anymore nursing. I am just amazed they spent years teaching you things that may be impossible for you to safely do, I would be furious with the college, it is a bit like teaching an epileptic to fly a plane, he may be very good at it but until his fits are undetectable he can never safely fly can he? I am not sure re the US but many arab states refuse entry to hbv carriers, without doubt many countries do not employ hbv positive nurses Your career relies on your reponse to meds and liver specialists help, now as in 2010, so do talk at length with him and look at courses for nurses that do not involve exposure prone work as a back up maybe. I am sorry to be firm but the question is not can i nurse? but can i nurse safely? THAT is what you must ascertain and only the liver specialist can arrange the meds and find out. Good Luck Paul
By: jibrylle Postings: 1 From: n/a	Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 - 01:15 PM hi i'm jib,24 now i'm a registered nurse here in the Philippines for almost 4 years,i have a healthy and active lifestyle,asymptomatic in my illness till now that's why i was so disappointed when i found out that i'm a hepatitis b carrier during our medical requirement before admitted in level 2 and unfortunately with 4 of my siblings & i think we inherited it from our father also asymptomatic like all of us.our university physician told me i can continue my studies and can work locally after graduation but never abroad,i really wanted to be a nurse to care for the needy and also for my family and wanted to go out of the country as my dream, so our dean/supervisor asked me to get a certification from another doctor to still have my duties in hospitals as requirement for graduate,my hbsag test is reactive fortunately my hbeag is non reactive, my sgpt is normal so as no liver enlargement and vdrl non-reactive ,my doctor prescribed me nothing till now,no vaccine needed cause i have the virus already but its core is non-reactive so still not infectious so he diagnosed me as hepab carrier,not infectious but will carry the burden/disease for life yet he told me i can still work abroad cause i am hbeag non-reactive,my institution/university allowed me to study and graduated and fortunately passed the phil nsg. licensure exam right after our graduation last 2009,im registered nurse for almost 4 years and planning to work abroad for a greener pasteur to feed my family but i don't have any confidence to apply abroad since i become rn due to my illness,i'm here to ask for your help where can i apply to work abroad as a nurse or any related job(as a caregiver) cause still i have no good job till now. now i'm busy looking for agencies/employer to hire me despite my condition. my dream land is united kingdom but willing to work in any country with a better offers.thank you so much! godbless everyone!
By: administrator Postings: 353 From: n/a	Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 - 08:01 PM Hi Jib Apply to NHS Careers http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-who-you-are/international-healthcare-professionals/ Occupational health will explain how to make hbv undetectable. With 800,000 hbv and hcv undiagnosed in UK we need viral hepatitis nurse consultants to help us preveny 5 billion pounds of liver pain over the next 50 years. Paul