If the employee knew during this time period of possible patient exposures, that they were infected with their "blood borne illness", it could be that the employee was malicous and purposely attempting to expose patients. I can see of no other explanation, unless the employee has recently been diagnosed and the advanced stage of the disease indicates they have been infected for several years. Even so, there should never be any blood exposure to patients from an employee at a healthcare facility and the employee should have known proper procedures to prevent that, so it all makes little sense in an accidental scenario...maybe ignorance and neglect to follow proper procedures. I feel so sorry for the patients who now must wait for results, and hope none were infected by this strange situation.

Actually after re-reading the article, I think the employee must have been incorrectly using the pens and finger sticks on multiple patients, without disposing of the used, contaminated equipment, and without knowing what patients participated in sessions that this occured, they must test all to check for any possible infections from contaminated equipment that they may have been exposed to. How the employee could be so ignorant is a BIG question...still wonder if their was malicious intent, as any healthcare employee would have been trained to never allow this to happen.