(1) The department and each appropriate board within the Division of Medical Quality Assurance shall have the authority to establish procedures to handle, counsel, and provide other services to health care professionals within their respective boards who are infected with hepatitis B or the human immunodeficiency virus.
(2) Any person licensed by the department and any other person employed by a health care facility who contracts a blood-borne infection shall have a rebuttable presumption that the illness was contracted in the course and scope of his or her employment, provided that the person, as soon as practicable, reports to the person’s supervisor or the facility’s risk manager any significant exposure, as that term is defined in s. 381.004(1)(f), to blood or body fluids. The employer may test the blood or body fluid to determine if it is infected with the same disease contracted by the employee. The employer may rebut the presumption by the preponderance of the evidence. Except as expressly provided in this subsection, there shall be no presumption that a blood-borne infection is a job-related injury or illness.
History.—s. 75, ch. 91-297; s. 76, ch. 94-218; s. 62, ch. 97-261; s. 81, ch. 99-397; s. 59, ch. 2000-160; s. 121, ch. 2012-184; s. 2, ch. 2015-110.
