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In the situations you describe, those are acute situations, which involve emergency workers, and hospitals...and those places are always allowed to know HIV status...but for some reason, nursing homes were not afforded the same information...because nursing homes are not institutions, that take in acute situations....most people in nursing homes, are there to receive help with their daily living activities, or receive custodial care, rather than medical care, tho residents in nursing homes are allowed IVS and meds and such....

So nursing home workers were always put into a different category from EMT workers, and hospital workers...yet nursing home care workers may into contact with the residents bodily fluids(sorry for being graphic), may have to perform CPR on a resident, may accidentally receive an wound from a combative HIV positive resident...

You are right about symptoms of advanced cases of HIV patients being evident...however, I know for sure, that while I was working in the nursing home, I cared for two men who were HIV positive, and neither was in the advanced stages, so it was not evident...I knew, only because my charge nurse, took me aside, looked me in the eye, said, "your patient has a blood borne pathogen, do you understand", and she did not let me go, until she was sure that I understood exactly what she was saying...that my patient was HIV positive...

People who work in nursing homes do a LOT of CPR. My first couple of years in the fire department, I was in a territory with three nursing homes, and they gave us a lot of CPR business. Nursing home workers are far more likely to come in contact with body fluids because of all the tending duties. Changing bandages, bedding, diapers, etc.

It takes a lot of patience, and the pay is generally not very good for any but the top brass.

I respect anyone who can do it and keep a good attitude. That being said, I always worried about AIDS less than I did the sixty zillion other communicable diseases around. When I started in the fire service (1970's), they didn't even issue gloves. Everything was bare handed, or fire gloves, and we worked car wrecks, burn injuries, you name it. Strangely enough, there was a lot of resistance to universal precautions when they were first introduced. Personally, I don't even begin an evaluation of someone now without gloves, even if I think all I'm going to do is take a blood pressure.

I have done hospital nursing for many years and I can tell you that HIV status is not made known to the staff. I worked in an extremely understaffed and wildly busy ICU and had several needle sticks. The paper work to report this was five pages long and then you would have to leave your patients to go to the ER. I usually made an educated judgment as to whether it was crucial to report the stick. Not smart, I know, but sometimes I had no choice.

All our patients had multiple tubes and lots of drainage so you had to be extremely careful but accidents happen. We found out quite by accident about a positive HIV pt from a doctor who had been stuck with a needle during a procedure and was undergoing treatment.

As far as catching HIV from CPR, it has happened. It was documented in the nursing magazines. The woman, a wife and mother eventually died.