Health Care Workers TB Testing, Essay Example

In my opinion when there is no outbreak of Tuberculosis. As such, routine TB testing is not necessary for health care workers when hired and annually. If this is reason behind this is because tuberculosis is a communicable disease, then there are many other communicable diseases for which no testing is done. For example, healthcare workers should be tested for HIV/AIDS. Hepatitis and many other communicable diseases. Arguments for TB testing is that the disease is air bourn and van be easily transmitted by droplet and inspiration. According to Dr. David Ayoub while mandatory TB testing is being conducted as a CDC regulation advancing that health care workers are at high risk of contracting the disease there is no data to validate the assumptions (Ayoub,1).

The Social issue    relates to the argument that health care workers can easily transmit the disease or at risk of contracting it. Again there are no supportive data creating a profound reason for the perpetuation of this rule as public health regulation. Further, there have been contentions related to the fact most persons who become infected by TB, as in all other infectious diseases, those individuals are ones with compromised immune systems as in the AIDS virus cases (Core Curriculum on Tuberculosis, 1).

Economic issue- At this point tin time when Ebola virus has gained entry into the United States of America the money wasted in conducting irrelevant TB screening on health care workers can be invested in providing better protection for them when treating infected patient and conducting research and training ( Franklyn, 1).

Political issue involves immediate suspending HCWs mandatory TB skin testing policies due to inadequate data explaining its screening relevance and incidence treatment of LTBI cases in the twenty-first century. Current policy reviews of the local public health law indicates that in while the TB screening is safe health care workers do not need to be exposed to this testing because the majority prove negative (Ayoub,1).

Works cited

Ayoub, David. The Rationale for TB Screening of Healthcare Workers (HCWs) and Other Low-risk Populations: A critical Review. Accessed on October 17^th, 2014 from http://www.vaclib.org/basic/tbtest.htm. 2014 Web.

Core Curriculum on Tuberculosis. What Every Clinician Should Know 4^th ed).  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  2000 Print.

Fridkin, SK, SHEA-CDC Tuberculosis survey, Part 1. Status of tuberculosis infection control programs at member hospitals. Infect. Control Hosp Epidemiol. 16:1992, 129-134, Print

Gosti Lawrence. Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint.Sage.2008 Print.