Hi Guys,
Firs off, apologies for my bad English, I am not a native speaker. I recently attended an STD clinic in the UK for a full screening.
The nurse tried to draw my blood twice (cannot remember if both attempts were made with the same butterfly needle) but failed (for some reason my blood was not getting drawn into the test tubes).
After that she proposed to try the other arm and what happened next is what is now scaring me to hell.
She took a new butterfly needle, removed the cap but at that point i was feeling uncomfortable (i fainted a few times in the past while blood was being drawn). So I told her I was going to give the urine specimen in the room next door and we would try again after a couple of minutes.
When I came back, she was successful at collecting the blood samples.
What freaks me out is that I believe she used the butterfly needle she had previously uncapped. I did not notice if she put it on the equipment tray, the trolley or elsewhere (I am pretty sure without the cap), but started to panic afterwards.
So, in the end, if the butterfly needle without the cap was kept on those surfaces, potentially unclean, and then used to draw my blood, are there any risks of infection, for HIV and other blood-borne viruses (I read some other posts on the internet where patients saw bloodstains from previous patients on working surfaces).
Please tell me what you think, I am deeply worried.
Thanks a lot!