Jonathan has written before and continues to write about how Walmart’s sick-leave policy for employees all but guarantees that shopping in a Walmart puts you at risk of becoming infected with some any number of viral and bacterial contagions.

But for those Walmarts with in-store clinics, you’re at risk from customers shopping while waiting to see a nurse practitioner as well. If we go to a doctor’s office or the emergency room we expect a certain level of exposure to such infections. Accepting that potential level of infection in Aisle No. 6, however is another manner.

According to Medpage:

The 10 complaints [at retail clinics] included: upper respiratory infection, sinusitis, bronchitis, pharyngitis, immunizations, middle-ear infection, outer-ear infection, conjunctivitis, urinary tract infection and blood pressure check or screening lab tests.

By my profoundly non-medical-school-attending count that’s four infections that that could be passed from a sneeze or cough, and three more that could be passed by casual physical contact.

Adding in-store clinics to any retail establishment just doesn’t make good medical sense.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 1215 by Jeff Hess and is filed under In-Store Clinics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.