Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1988. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune (CT) - WEDNESDAY September 14, 1988 Edition: SPORTS FINAL Section: CHICAGOLAND Page: 1 Word Count: 624
Charles Mount
The board's Health and Hospitals Committee, whose members include all 17 board members, voted 10-1 to support a resolution sponsored by board member Carl Hansen (R., Mt. Prospect) and cosponsored by 6 other board members. The measure would go into effect as soon as hospital staff can devise a statement that would be handed to patients soon after they enter the West Side institution.
The policy would cover all hospital workers who "routinely provide direct patient care," including doctors and nurses. It is expected to be approved at the board's meeting Monday.
Ron Damasauskas, assistant vice president for government affairs at the Illinois Hospital Association, said he does not know of any other Illinois hospital, public or private, with a similar policy.
"I have not heard of it being used outside of Illinois, either, although there might be a hospital I don't know about," he said.
The controversial policy has been under consideration by the board and hospital staff since it was adopted by the County Hospital Subcommittee last Sept. 16 after the board discovered that three former physicians and two former nursing employees at the hospital had contracted AIDS. At least three of the five are dead.
The resolution was passed Tuesday over the objections of County Hospital's House Staff Association, which represents doctors at the institution; the Chicago Women's AIDS Project; and the Hispanic AIDS Network, a group of 32 community organizations in Chicago.
Board member Bobbie L. Steele (D., Chicago) cast the only dissenting vote, saying there are no known cases in the health-care industry to indicate that AIDS has been transmitted by a health-care worker.
"Why should health-care workers bear an employment stigma for the rest of their lives," Steele said. "Let's treat the problem of AIDS as a community problem, as it really is, and develop strategies to deal with the whole community through education and testing. Putting fear into the hearts of poor people is certainly not my idea of protecting them."
"This is a patient's right to know," said board member John Stroger (D., Chicago). "Doctors at County have told me they wouldn't let members of their own families be treated by a certain doctor at the hospital (because of a fear he has AIDS), but then they turn around and come out for doctors' rights."
Hospital Committee Chairman Samuel Vaughan (D., Chicago) and board member Harold Tyrrell (R., Westchester) said the policy would give indigent patients, most of whom are forced to go to County Hospital, the same right as private patients to refuse treatment by a doctor.
However, opponents of the policy argued that American Hospital Association and federal Centers for Disease Control guidelines urge only that all care be taken not to spread communicable diseases and that disclosure of a health-care worker's AIDS affliction "serves no purpose" if all other precautions are taken.
They also pointed out that state law requires health-care workers to notify hospital authorities if they are diagnosed as having the AIDS or HIV viruses, thus allowing the hospital to monitor the workers' contact with patients.
"You can't implement this policy without mandating that every health-care worker be tested and requiring every health-care worker to wear a tag denoting his sexual preference," said Cathy Christeller, director of the Chicago Women's AIDS Project.
Dr. Stonewall McCuiston, president of the House Staff Association, said the new policy "would wrongly give the impression that there is a high incidence of AIDS and HIV cases among County Hospital workers."
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