Sharps Disposal Container: Child Should Not Be Able To Reach In, Prick Finger
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
September 1998
Quick Summary: A clinic owes a duty to a young child to "childproof" the used sharps container by locating it in a spot in the examination room where a child cannot put his hand in and prick himself on a used needle.
The child was negative for HIV and hepatitis, but he could still sue for his injury.
The parents’ fear their child might have become infected was not enough for them to be able to sue.
COURT OF APPEAL OF LOUISIANA, 1998.While waiting in the examination room with his mother and his two young siblings, a twenty-eight month-old boy put his hand into the used sharps disposal container and pricked his finger on a needle on a syringe which had been used to vaccinate another patient. His mother promptly told the nurse.
The nurse cleaned the wound, reported the incident to her supervisor, and told the mother the boy would have to be tested for HIV and hepatitis. Testing that day and subsequent testing was all negative.
The parents filed suit against the clinic, on behalf of their child and on their own behalf. The Court of Appeal of Louisiana upheld the suit for the child, but denied the parents the right to sue on their own behalf.
State law requires a healthcare facility to store used sharps in a secure manner and location which affords protection from theft, vandalism and inadvertent human exposure. According to the court, it follows from this that a clinic has to protect a young child from unknowingly putting his or her hand into a sharps disposal container while exploring the environment in a clinic examination room.
However, the court ruled only the child could sue, and since he tested negative, he could sue only for the injury to his finger, not for the possibility of being infected. The court ruled the parents had no right to sue over their fear their child might have been infected, the probability of infection having been very small from the start, and the child actually having tested negative.
Walker v. Health, 711 So. 2d 734 (La. App., 1998).