September 8, 1999
Dear Colleague:
We would like to invite your staff to attend a briefing Monday, September 13 at 2:00 pm in 1302 LHOB hosted by the Women's Caucus to learn about health care worker needlestick injuries. This issue is particularly important to women because they make up such a large percentage of the health care worker population.
While workplace injuries are decreasing in most industries, they are increasing for health care workers. According to a 1997 report by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) approximately 800,000 hospital-based workers are injured annually from accidental needlesticks. Despite this alarming number, needlestick injuries are considered to be widely underreported. Various studies have estimated that anywhere from 40% to 53% of all injuries to nurses go unreported and up to 92% for laboratory workers. Physicians are estimated to underreport needlestick injuries by 70% to 95%.
The briefing will feature a presentation by Karen Daley, RN, President of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Earlier this year, Karen suffered a workplace needlestick injury that tragically resulted in her infection with both HIV and Hepatitis C. Karen's injury wasn't caused by a mistake she made -- it was caused by the equipment she was using. There are safe needle and needleless technologies available today that prevent injuries like the one Karen has suffered.
We are all supporters of HR 1899, The Health Care Worker Needlestick Prevention Act. This legislation would enact new federal standards to require the use of safe needle and needleless technologies to prevent workplace injuries. This legislation is modeled after a California law that went into effect this past July. It has the support of more than 120 Members of Congress today and more than 30 different organizations representing health care workers, nurses, physicians, public health associations, consumer advocacy groups, manufacturers, and the list goes on.
At this briefing:
Karen will tell her story and demonstrate some of these safe needle
devices,
Elizabeth Robbins with Rep. Roukema will discuss the magnitude of
the problem and describe the action being taken by states to protect workers
within their borders, and
Debbie Curtis with Rep. Stark will discuss HR 1899,
The Health Care Worker Needlestick Prevention Act.
We hope your staff will be able to join us at this important briefing.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Maloney, MC Sue W. Kelly, MC
Pete Stark, MC Marge Roukema, MC