Monica Stokes is a volunteer at a local extended care facility. Her duties include pushing a cart with books
around to the patients' rooms to ask if they would like
to borrow a library book. When she enters Mr. Haskin's
room, the nurse asks her if she would please take the
dirty linens and place them in the linen basket down
the hall. She is new and unclear if this is one of her
duties, but also desires to be helpful, and surely the
nurse would not ask her if it were not appropriate. So
she picks up the linens from the floor, carries them
close to her, and places them in the linen basket. She
notices some stains on her clothes, so she goes to the
sink and rinses them off with cold water in the hope
there will be no permanent stain. She then returns to
her duties of distributing books to patients.
1 Was it appropriate for the nurse to ask the volun-
teer to assist with the linens?
2. Are all the links present in the chain of infection?
3. What breaks in standard precautions can you
identify?