Saturday 13 July 2013

Discrimination stresses David

Since the discrimination episode at his work, David has been stressing a lot about it. Had like pimples coming out here and there and a bit on the face from the stress. Normally he doesn't have any dreams at all, but last night he got up very early and went to watch telly in the lounge. Asked him if he was OK and said he was having a bad nightmare about work. Poor guy.

He's not been back to work since. Just can't do it, not with all these people knowing his status and gossiping about it behind his back. He's decided to go back to the agency and get work through them like he used to (in fact he started working his job now through the agency). Plus he's won a scholarship award and is planning on going to Uni next year to improve his skills as a nurse.

Perhaps on the face of it there may be some legitimate concern over an HIV+ nurse treating patients. However with universal precautions that are supposed to be used without fail there's absolutely no reason why there would be a problem. That and the fact that his viral load is undetectable. For fellow nurses to question whether they can be infected through casual contact is completely out there. They, of all people, should know.

He went to get some blood taken at his doctor yesterday and she couldn't believe what the nurses had done, calling it "disgusting". In fact nobody that gets told about this, including management at his work, are in any way supportive of those nurses. Rather they support David. If this does all go ahead through the courts there's going to be some very unhappy nurses learning a very hard lesson.

What pisses me off the most about this is that nurses are supposed to be caring and doing things in the interests of people's health, not fuckin backstab them and cause them to be so stressed out that it affects their health. I hope out of all of this those nurses may at least gain an understanding of how discrimination can affect people, including an award winning nurse.

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