Educating workers about tuberculosis.

Abstract

At a state penitentiary, workers are told that the communicable disease unit is a safe environment in which to work due to the negative air pressure in the isolation rooms and the improved ventilation system. However, nobody is trained to monitor the system or understands the role of negative air pressure, and isolation room doors are occasionally left open. As a result, workers are reluctant to work in the unit. At a soup kitchen, workers refuse to serve people with HIV due to fear of tuberculosis transmission. They have heard that people infected with HIV are likely to have TB and, therefore, to protect themselves, they feel the soup kitchen should not serve people with HIV. In a large, urban social service agency, workers buy masks and begin wearing them to work when they hear a coworker has tuberculosis. Pictures of them in the newspaper instigate a string of similar actions in other agencies. Emergency room workers in a city hospital have been told they are not at increased risk of contracting TB, because they do not have prolonged contact with infectious patients. However, when they discover that several coworkers tested positive on PPD screening tests, they go to their union demanding action.