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Nov 12, 2005 8:17 am US/Eastern
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CBS 2 Exclusive: Teacher Says She Got Sick At Work
Claims Blood-To-Blood Contact Gave Her Liver Ailment Hepatitis C
QUEENS (CBS) ―
Lori Baron says she loves the kids she works with, even the one that gave her a debilitating disease.
For the past 11 years, Baron has worked as a teacher's aide with emotionally disturbed and physically disabled children at Beach Channel High School in Queens.
"We have students, mind you they are wonderful, they have self mutilating tantrums where they'll attack themselves and what we try to do is stop them," Baron said.
But on at least two occasions that were documented, Baron says she was scratched or bit, resulting in blood-to-blood contact.
Then, two years ago, she tested positive for hepatitis C, a severe liver disease that when left untreated can be fatal.
While it's hard to prove, Baron and her doctor say the blood exposure had to have happened at school because she's never had a blood transfusion and she's not an intravenous drug user, the other most common ways to contract the disease.
"I went from being a fitness trainer, working for the board of education and going to school to my life totally being turned upside down," Baron said.
In the last two years, the teachers' union has received reports of 128 staff members who've had blood-to-blood contact with students. Under federal guidelines, teachers in these high-risk situations are supposed to receive training, protective gear like gloves and aprons and free hepatitis B vaccinations.
But recent inspections by the New York State Labor Department have found the city's plan to be lacking. Since 2004, the Department of Education has been slapped with 14 violations, and currently faces fines of more than $40,000.
"We do not understand why the board pays no attention to this but it is really putting its employees, and its students, in terrible danger," teachers' union president Randi Weingarten said.
The Department of Education would not comment on camera, but is appealing the violations, arguing it is in full compliance with the law.
In the meantime, officials say they stepped up training for teachers in August, and hope to have protective gear in every city school by the end of the year, above what the law calls for.
But Baron, along with other teachers who spoke with CBS 2 at Beach Channel, say while they have gloves now, little else has changed.
"I've never had any special training to deal with this type of situation," Baron said. "I can't believe they put me in harms way like this."
Baron is still working at Beach Channel because the city hasn't agreed she contracted the disease at the school, and therefore she hasn't been eligible for workman's compensation. So she needs to keep working for her health benefits.
And, as Baron said, she still loves the job.
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