Health cares reaction to bed-bug epidemic likened to …

When one hospital discovered a cancer patient lived in a home with bed bugs, it took stern action, refusing to provide a diagnostic scan and radiation treatment to the infested person. Another facility canceled a procedure for a kidney-disease sufferer under similar circumstances.

Both institutions eventually relented when public-health nurses got involved and eased their fears, but the incidents were not unique, suggests a new report.

Many Canadians afflicted by bed bugs are facing extra delays in getting medical treatment or outright denial of service from health-care workers reluctant to expose themselves to the nocturnal pest, the report suggests.

I have seen many situations where [infested] patients were not treated as fairly as other patients they were discharged faster, they were staying longer on the waiting lists, said Maude Lalibert, a physiotherapist and University of Montreal professor behind the article in the journal HEC Forum. Its a real problem

Ms. Lalibert likens health cares reaction to the bed-bug epidemic to the early days of AIDS, when patients with the disease were often treated as pariahs.

The reports authors argue that nurses, doctors, home-care workers and others have an ethical duty to help patients with bed-bug problems, and urge health organizations to develop protocols on dealing with buggy environments and individuals.

Meanwhile, some health workers are negotiating contract provisions to ensure they are compensated if they bring an infestation home with them, while authorities in Ontario and Manitoba have specifically ruled employees cannot refuse such work.

This is the new normal, said Diane Dyson, public-policy director with Torontos Woodgreen Community Services. Our workers need to know this is the new normal.

Bed bugs had been all but eliminated in North America by the middle of the last century, only to reemerge with a vengeance over the last decade.

Though they suck their human preys blood, the insects are not known to transmit disease. They do sometimes trigger allergic reactions, though, while severe infestations can cause chronic sleeplessness, social isolation and even mental-health problems. The elderly, poor and disabled, often unable to afford the costly extermination, tend to be hit hardest, experts say.

Yet Ms. Lalibert, who provides physiotherapy services to patients in their Montreal homes, is not alone in seeing such people struggle to get equal health services.

In Toronto, a client was denied a diagnostic test and treatment for cancer because of an infestation, said Allie Lehmann, head of the public health departments vulnerable adult and seniors team.

I was around when AIDS started and people had similar concerns

There is a lot of misplaced, misguided, uneducated fear around bed bugs, so sometimes people have been turned away, said Ms. Lehman. I was around when AIDS started and people had similar concerns. Sometimes I think Im back there.

She said health-care staff do tend to see the light when they are taught about the true nature of the bugs and how to avoid transporting them to their workplace or homes.

Experts say the insects can be staved off with relatively simple precautions, such as not putting bags on the floor of infested apartments and wearing light-coloured clothing that makes the bugs easy to spot and kill. In more extreme cases, workers can wear plastic bed-bug suits and booties.

Tracy Leach, head of the Toronto public health bed-bug team, said she was called in recently to help a kidney-dialysis patient whose procedure at a local hospital had been postponed because the individual had bed bugs. Other clients have had agencies refuse to provide services in their homes until their infestation was cleared up, she said.

Kelly OSullivan, a local president with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said health-care providers who visit clients in infested homes should ideally be able to decline the work, with the bugs immediately exterminated so the workers can quickly return. But her members, paid in the range of $18,000 a year, never refuse a job because it would mean an automatic loss of income, she said.

When one Toronto home-care worker did decline an assignment in an infested residence, Ontarios Labour Ministry actually ruled that the insects were not grounds for work refusal, said Ms. Dyson.

A 2012 Winnipeg Regional Health Authority document also states that visiting infested patients so long as the employee is properly trained and equipped does not constitute dangerous work.

Woodgreen, considered a leader in tackling the bedbug problem, has agreed to compensate its personal-support workers up to $500 to eliminate infestations related to their jobs. It happens to staff about twice a year, Ms. Dyson said.

National Posttblackwell@nationalpost.com

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