Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Gillian Mostyn — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 09:57:38 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"]I did request a toxo test - which was negative. I thought that only 'old' cat poo was a problem anyway..??[/quote]

No - old cats are immune, it's young cats that shed the parasite, but only for a short period in their life when first infected. I understand they may only shed for a week of their life so the risk has to be small. Old immuno-supressed cats may shed when older.

[/quote]

hahaha - I see why it sounds like I meant old cats - but I meant aged poo!! It may be something I've dreamt sometime, but I have a distant memory of being told that the infective bits (sorry - parasitology terms are a dim and distant memory) have to hang around for a few days before becoming infective, so new poo isn't as high risk as garden soil!!

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Kate Dawes — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:27:40 GMT

I'm pregnant at the moment, so have recently been through all this, though I didn't really have a formal risk assessment, just a quick discussion re what I was happy doing or not.

I have pretty much carried on as normal, except avoiding masking anaesthetics, not handling cytotoxic drugs and avoiding heavy lifting. I think for nurses it is probably easier to avoid things that carry a small risk - we have had lots of pregnant nurses in the last few years and none have them have done any anaesthetics whilst pregnant. I was asked what I wanted to do and opted to continue doing surgery, partly because I thought the risk was small and partly for my own sanity as I didn't want to be consulting all day every day for 9 mths It also would have had a pretty big impact on the practice had I decided not to do anaesthetics. I think this has to be discussed though and is for the individual to make the decision. Otherwise I think it's just sensible precautions as other people have said - wearing gloves to clean out litter trays (which I'm sure we all ought to do anyway), avoiding x rays and wearing gloves to dispense drugs.

I definately agree about the regular breaks, again possibly easier for nurses than vets. I must admit I never realised how tiring pregnancy is, (and I didn't have any of the morning sickness which I'm sure makes it all much worse) might be worth somehow mentioning this to other staff so they don't think she's skiving? I haven't had a toxo test, as I figured it wouldn't make that much difference - as Laurence said, you should be careful anyway.

Re telling people, obviously that's up to her, I must admit I told everyone at work as soon as I found out, which bizarrely meant all my work colleagues knew before my family! I think it's the sort of job where it makes sense for people to know, as Gillian said, I figured that if anything went wrong I would need people to know anyway.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Laurence Webb — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:31:17 GMT

Isn't the normal blood test to check for antibodies rather than antigen?

If you're +ve then you should be safe if exposed to toxo again as your body will quickly eliminate it. It's those that are -ve for antibodies that are at high risk if exposed to toxo. You still need to take sensible precautions either way of course.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Jacquin Mitchell — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:23:28 GMT

I think Gillian is referring to the age of the poo, not the cat. But I could be wrong....

I too requested a toxo test for each pregnancy, and was negative for the first 3 but positive for the 4th!!!

Jacq

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Michael Woodhouse — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:34:08 GMT

[quote user="Gillian Mostyn"]I did request a toxo test - which was negative. I thought that only 'old' cat poo was a problem anyway..??[/quote]

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Gillian Mostyn — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:48:30 GMT

[quote user="Hanna Bennett"]workshy for not cleaning out litter trays etc[/quote]

When I went to my first doctor's appointment when pregnant, the doctor went through all the routine warnings - including that I shouldn't handle cats at all. Hmmm. She didn't know what to say when I pointed out I was a vet. I did request a toxo test - which was negative. I thought that only 'old' cat poo was a problem anyway..??

If she wishes to keep her pregnancy a secret until 12 weeks that is her decision - but you cannot be responsible for anything other than modifying her workload - how the other staff perceive this change is her problem. I told everyone at work at 7 weeks pregnant as it was impossible to avoid all the radiographs etc without it being blatently obvious anyway. I never have understood this 12 weeks thing anyway - surely work colleagues are going to need to know before then??? And if the worst happens, they're likely to find out anyway?? I was in this position recently and we did manage to keep the pregnancy secret until 12 weeks, but only because it was in a quiet practice and she took some holiday leave. In out other, busy, practice it would have been impossible.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Hanna Bennett — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:13:19 GMT

found both of those, ta Gillian. It is one of our nurses - having told me at 8 weeks she is worrying the others will find her workshy for not cleaning out litter trays etc, but does not want to tell anyone else til 12 weeks, which is fair enough really. Just trying to cover all bases so all thoughts welcome/

And Clive, our H&S is pretty good, but we still need to do a specific risk assessment in this case. First pregnant member of staff in years (here's hoping this does not come in threes....)

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Gillian Mostyn — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:02:37 GMT

Some good sources of info are:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg373hp.pdf

You may have found this already, but also

http://www.rcvs.org.uk/shared_asp_files/gfsr.asp?nodeid=97574

Personally, I changed nothing I did. If I had been able to do anything diferently, it would have been to have regular breaks when I was heavily pregnant (30wks +). Just having 10mins to sit down with a brew every couple of hours would have been lovely, and prevented a lot of my tiredness and aches.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Clive Ansell — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:52:38 GMT

Should we not, and don't we have a duty to, be careful with radiation safety, anaesthetic gases, lifting, handling steroids or cytotoxic drugs anyway, regardless of whether pregnant or not?

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

salome2001 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:01:55 GMT

I wore gloves to handle steroids including pred. might have been an over-reaction. Anything cytotoxic was off-limits.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Hanna Bennett — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:10:24 GMT

what about dispensing? our nurses wear gloves when doing so, but handling of cytotoxics makes me twitch even so...

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

Hanna Bennett — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:08:23 GMT

you're right, it should be in there, but it's not. sigh. you can tell it was set up by a man. Right, off to write one.

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

salome2001 — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:23:54 GMT

also radiation safety / xrays and inhaled anaesthetics: no masking

Re: Health and Safety - Pregnant Staff

salome2001 — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:21:24 GMT

should be in your practice H&S folder. I found very little for vets, but quite a lot for vet nurses (!) main things would include lengthy consulting sessions without a break, access for toilet breaks, noncontact with cat poo re toxo, smells (I got really ill on any disinfectant other than unscented trigene) and lifting