to be worried at arm not being swabbed before needle inserted for blood-test?

[annoyednow]

As above really. Had a blood test and the person taking the blood didn't swab the area before inserting the needle. This was after her finger was pressing it to assess vein.

Do you guys always get swabbed beforehand?

eosmum... yes they do the same at Blood Donation here... I believe (but maybe someone knows more about this) that it has an element of aneasthetic in it

Oh, and gloves are for the needle-wielder's protection in the event of a needlestick injury, not the recipient! Hands should always be washed properly before and after regardless of whether gloves are worn. so I wasnt being too prissy when the nurse (at the fingerpricking stage at Blood Donation) sneezed into her hand.

It was at the time of Swine Flu being in the news and she muttered something about her not having it but I was more concerned for the ickyness of her sneezed on hands probably overkill on my part

No, I wouldn't let anyone near me to take blood if I'd just watched them contaminate their hands and not re-wash them, that's rank! And a HCP should not mind in the slightest if you ask them to wash their hands before touching you, regardless of what they're going to do or whether it not their hands are clean!

featherbag you don't swab in hospitals for venapuncture either, for reasons already repeated a few times on here

(and community isn't cleaner than hospital by the way)

Another Phlebotomist here

We swab the arm...but can choose to wear gloves or not. I don't as I cannot feel the vein.

We are told in our protocol to sparay our hand in front of every patient with alcohol spray, as our small OPD in our hospital does not have a sink in every cubicle...but there is one in the walkway bit just by the curtains.

I'm in the cancer day ward every week, they always swab before they stab, they also wash their hands and use antibacterial gel, before they come anywhere near you.

cancer wards are obviously different

it still into your blood stream, I wouldn't allow anyone to go in without clean hands and swabbed skin, no matter what.

clean hands of course
but swabbing has been proven to make no difference to venopuncture except to add pain
I guess some people do it to please members of the public who aren't interested in the science behind it

cancer wards are totally different though, its not about it going into the skin, EVERYTHING that touches the patient gets extra cleaning

I had blood taken a couple of weeks ago and was very surprised that she didn't wipe my arm first. Mind you she was very good - straight in and out. Usually they are faffing about for ages because I have disappearing veins (no fun when combined with a needle phobia, I can tell you).

Hi everybody!

I had the same situation if not worse. The doctor didn't wash his hands before drawing the blood even though he was typing on keyboard before it, he touched the place on my arm before inserting the needle with bare hand and didn't apply any antiseptic.

That was the first time in my life I saw such a way of ignorance towards hygiene of patient. Feeling a bit frustrated coz no one can say for sure that this way of drawing blood is 100% safe. All I read so far is "most probably nothing bad happened there", "the possibility to get a blood borne disease is very low"... Since there is still even small possibility why not eliminate it completely and put gloves on before the manipulation and apply antiseptic?.. I feel frustrated and most probably after 1-2 months I would have to go and pass the blood test to check that I don't have any hepatitis, staphylococcus and whatever else it could be...

Any advice if I should really go and draw blood again to make sure I didn't get any virus/bacteria?

ZOMBIE ZOMBIE

My advice- start your own thread. Not one 5 yrs old.

How on earth do.people even find these threads

Blood test

So I just had a blood test at the hospital and noticed she didn't wear gloves but swabbed the area. She took the little cotton pad from the top of the trolley but I noticed a tiny smear of blood on the surface of the trolley where she kept the needles and pad ready. I'm just worried about transfer of anything. She was very quick but just disorganised.

You don’t need it done. I’m allergic to those wipes so they never use it on me. I’m fine!