Forum Seeks to Allay AIDS ‘Hysteria’
Health care workers were assured by union officials and medical authorities Saturday that many of their fears about contracting the AIDS virus from their patients are unfounded.
Los Angeles Local 399 of the Hospital and Services Employees Union sponsored the forum on the deadly disease for its members to alleviate the “hysteria” about the disease, a union official said.
Cliff Morrison, assistant director of nursing at San Francisco General Medical Special Care Unit, the first hospital in the nation to establish a special AIDS care unit, said health workers should take the same precautions with AIDS patients as they would with those having other infectious diseases.
“There is absolutely no reason for the kind of hysteria going on with AIDS today,” Morrison said. “We’re saying don’t overreact. You don’t get it from casual contact. AIDS is a virus that is passed along like any other virus.”
Morrison said there is no known case in which a health care worker has contracted AIDS from working with those afflicted with the disease.
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