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By DR. RICHARD P. KEELING
Rappahannock News Contributing Writer
A young women with AIDS recently went for routine dental care to a clinic in one of Virginia’s most respected teaching hospitals. Although she had an appointment, she was turned away.
In a hallway adjacent to the public waiting room, a hygienist explained to her that she couldn’t be treated then. She was told to come back at the end of a day, when she could be “barricaded” from other patients, and that the clinic would have to be “sterilized” after her visit. The woman left dejectedly without receiving care.
And for no reason.
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, is not transmitted by any kind of casual contact. The patient in this sad interaction endangered no other people in the waiting room; no “barricades” were needed.
All medical and dental instruments are routinely sterilized between patients, and clinical personnel must take reasonable precautions to prevent the transmission of HIV during procedures on all patients, not just those known to have AIDS. There was no conceivable need to sterilize the clinic.
Reasonable guidelines for protecting medical and dental professionals issued by the Public Health Service include no requirements for
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