A Brisbane nurse who feared she had contracted HIV/AIDS after being dribbled on by a patient will be allowed to claim compensation.
Lisa Calder told the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission that in the months after the June 2011 incident, it felt “like a part of me inside had died”.
The QIRC has ruled that the compensation application can go ahead because the underlying reason for Ms Calder’s claim was the psychological disorder she developed, not the actions of management after the incident.
Ms Calder, a level two registered nurse employed by Spiritus, was conducting a performance review of a personal care worker in an AIDS patients’ home on June 2, 2011.
She was kneeling to help clean and dress a wound on the back of the man’s leg when she felt a “wetness” in her right eye.
Ms Calder had told the commission she knew it was saliva straight away and started panicking.
“He’d had a CVA [cerebrovascular accident, or stroke] some years before and at times he did dribble,” she said.
Ms Calder said she took annual leave from June 3 to 13, during which time she constantly worried about the exposure incident.
“I stayed at home, I cried, I worried myself sick, I relieved the event over and over in my mind, I thought I was dying, I went on the Internet … constantly looking up HIV and saliva, what’s the likelihood – like, just trying to look up as much information as I could,” she told the commission.
Ms Calder lodged an application for compensation citing post-traumatic stress disorder in September 2011, but in October WorkCover Queensland rejected it, saying that “reasonable management action” had been taken.
Ms Calder asked for a review of the decision, which was upheld by the Workers’ Compensation Regulator in March 2012.
The QIRC took into consideration witness evidence and a psychological report about Ms Calder’s behaviour, which identified that she had not met the criteria for PTSD, but had developed an adjustment disorder with anxiety.
On June 6, 2014, Deputy President Daniel O’Connor ruled that Ms Calder’s appeal could go ahead.
“The evidence supports the conclusion that the appellant’s primary concern from the time she felt the spittle of an HIV/AIDS patient in her right eye was the fear of contracting HIV/AIDS and dying,” he said in his judgement.
“Whilst the management action was not inconsequential, it was of secondary concern to her primary fear of contracting HIV/AIDS.”
Mr O’Connor ordered the Workers’ Compensation Regulator allow the application for compensation, and to pay Ms Calder’s costs.