A whistleblower at University Hospital Waterford says mops 'soiled with congealed blood' were left on the floors of surgical theatres in the hospital.
The Sunday Business Post reports that the former nurse made the claims during a constructive dismissal case against the hospital.
The Workplace Relations Commission ruling outlines the nurse filed several clinical incident reports and eventually filed a protected disclosure regarding hygiene standards in the surgical theatres in which she worked.
The hospital told the WRC that it “does not dispute that the Complainant made a protected disclosure” and that “an investigation” was commissioned into the claims.
The WRC ruling notes that the theatre nurse “observed blood spillages in the theatre on regular occasions” and “observed consistent issues with mops heavily soiled with congealed blood being left on the floors and sluices of theatres in breach of blood spillage protocols”.
The nurse was moved from the Orthopaedic Theatre to the Central Sterile Services Department and continued to notice “similar failures with regard to infection control protocols”.
She began the process of filing a protected disclosure on the 22nd of August 2016, “relating to the non-compliance with Infection Prevention and Control standards and Blood and Body Fluid Spillage policy by theatre staff”.
The nurse received confirmation on 16 August 2017 that “the concerns raised by her were being dealt with under the Respondent’s framework for protected disclosures and had been referred to the Chief Officer of the Hospital Group for appropriate attention”.
The nurse had already resigned from her position at that stage, claiming that she was unfairly dismissed by way of constructive dismissal.
The nurse failed in her case at Workplace Relations Commission because she launched proceedings more than six months after she resigned.
