Sequoia Hospital: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Dec 10, 2020: Employee contracts infection while processing lab sample

At 1:46 p.m. on December 10, 2020, an employee who worked as a Lead Clinical Lab Scientist for a general medical and surgical hospital was hospitalized with a Shigella flexneri infection. On December 8, 2020, the employee had performed laboratory analysis for the organism, which causes a highly communicable form of dysentery, on a patient stool sample. The employee stated she opened the sample container to observe blood in the stool in a lab hood while wearing gloves. Later that day while she was at home she began to feel ill. On December 9, 2020, the employee called Coworker #1 (her Supervisor) and informed him she cannot go to work because she was sick. On December 10, 2020, the employee called in sick again and she went to the Emergency Department. She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit that day and was hospitalized until December 17, 2020. On December 10, 2020, Coworker #2 (an Employee Health Nurse) upon finding out that it was not COVID-19 related informed Coworker #3 (her Supervisor) that the employee was hospitalized but did not have COVID-19. Coworker #4 (the Infection Prevention Supervisor) stated that although she knew the employee was hospitalized on December 10, 2020, she did not report the employee's hospitalization to Cal-OSHA because she was not certain her illness was work related. Coworker #4 immediately reported the hospitalization to Coworker #5 (her Supervisor, the Director of Quality). The employee stated that when she was admitted at the ICU, she knew what she had contracted due to her work with the sample. On December 12, 2020, Coworker #6 (the Laboratory Director) received confirmation via a culture test that the employee was indeed infection with the bacteria. Upon leaving the hospital, the employee was sent home. The County Public Health Department confirmed the results of the culture on December 15, 2020.