THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents
Hutchison
[Page: S11623] GPO's PDF
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Moynihan
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Torricelli
Voinovich
Wellstone
Wyden
Levin
McCain
The amendment (No. 1805) was agreed to.
Mr. GRAMM. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. COVERDELL. I move to lay it on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
VOTE ON AMENDMENT NO. 1804
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the Murray amendment.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to table the Murray amendment. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. MCCAIN) is necessarily absent.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Mr. LEVIN) is absent due to a death in the family.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Michigan (Mr. LEVIN) would vote ``no.''
The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 44, as follows:
Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Moynihan
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Torricelli
Wellstone
Wyden
Levin
McCain
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. COVERDELL. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
AMENDMENT NO. 1807
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CRAPO). The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. REID], for himself, Mrs. BOXER, and Mr. KENNEDY, proposes an amendment numbered 1807.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's RECORD under ``Amendments Submitted.'')
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of the Senator from Nevada, Mrs. BOXER, and Senator KENNEDY.
A woman by the name of Karen Daly was stuck by a contaminated needle while working as an emergency room nurse in Massachusetts. As a result of her being inadvertently, accidentally stuck with a needle she was using on a patient, she was infected with both HIV and hepatitis C. She had worked as a nurse for 25 years. She, of course, can no longer work as a nurse. She loved her job. She has become, I believe, the Nation's most powerful advocate for our need to do something to prevent people from being accidentally stuck with needles from which they become sick.
Her story is really heart-rending. She says:
I can't describe for you how that one moment--the moment when I reached my gloved hand over a needle box to dispose of the needle I had used to draw blood--has drastically changed my life. Since January of this year, I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am infected with not one but two life-threatening diseases.
The tragic part of this story is, like Karen, so many other people could have had this accidental stick prevented. Karen Daly is one of 800,000 accidental sticks every year.
In Reno, NV, there is a woman by the name of Lisa Black, a 21-year-old registered nurse, a single mother of two, who has also learned the devastating impact of a needle stick. In October of 1997, 2 years ago, she was nursing a man who was in the terminal stages of AIDS when a needle containing his blood punctured her skin. Today, she is infected with hepatitis C and HIV. She takes 22 pills a day to keep her HIV infection from progressing to full-blown AIDS and to delay the effects of hepatitis C which is an incurable liver disease.
Lisa Black's needle stick could have been prevented if hospitals had widespread use of safe needles and needleless devices.
I repeat, 800,000 needlesticks and sharps injuries each year. That is more than is really imaginable, but it is true.
There are pages and pages of incidents I could report of people who are stuck with these needles. The nursing profession is mostly women, so most of the people who are injured are women.
I will talk about a couple of others.
Beth Anne. She graduated with a nursing degree less than a year before she got hurt. She says:
Life for me was just starting. Having graduated from college that year, I had planned to specialize in critical care, emergency services, and flight nursing. I was engaged to a wonderful and supportive engineer whom I had met when we were students on the same university campus. We were planning our wedding. Suddenly, everything seemed uncontrollable. The illness and the response from my employer seemed out of my control. ..... The severity of the illness threatened my life. ..... Wedding plans were postponed indefinitely.
Here is how she describes her injury:
I pulled the needle out. As the needle tip cleared the skin, the patient swiped at my right arm, sending the needle into my left hand. ``I forgot about the shot,'' the patient said. ``I thought it was a mosquito biting at my hip.''
Beth Anne says:
The injury I sustained is now preventable. ..... I injected the needle into her hip with my right hand, aspirated to assure placement, and pushed the plunger. The patient did not flinch. I pulled the needle out. As the needle tip cleared the skin, the patient swiped at my right arm, sending the needle into my left hand. ``I forgot about the shot,'' the patient said. ``I thought it was a mosquito biting at my hip.'' There [are] now syringes that automatically retract the needle into the syringe before the syringe is pulled away from the patient's skin. ..... The cost difference between this safe syringe and the one that infected [this lady] is less than the cost of a postage stamp. The cheaper syringe has cost [this woman and her employer] much more than this, in many ways.
She has been very sick and has been in and out of hospitals. Hundreds of these patients die each year from these injuries. Moreover, these statistics account for only reported injuries. The 800,000 are only those that are reported. There are a lot more that are not reported.
Lynda.
On September 9, ..... I sustained a needlestick whi le starting an intravenous
[Page: S11624] GPO's PDF
The reason I go over these stories is these are not negligent nurses. They have not done anything wrong.
What happened is on one occasion there was a needle in a wastepaper basket. She stuck her hand in it. Needles are not supposed to be put there.
On another occasion, a patient, very sick, not thinking well--senile--swiped at a person's hand, thinking it was a mosquito.
In this instance, I repeat, she was a 23-year-old registered nurse.
At my hospital I had received in-depth training and had attended in-service sessions about safety and technique. Although I was complying with all recommended precautions at the time my needlestick occ urred, these precautions were not enough to prevent the injury. While removing the needle from the patient's vein, he suddenly moved his arm and knocked mine. The motion forced the bloody exposed needle directly into my left palm. It punctured my latex gloves. .....
It was here that my worst fears were confirmed. The patient had AIDS and was in the final stage of the disease.
She said:
I began the 1-year wait to discover if I had become infected. At 3 weeks after my needlestick I w as sent to a family practitioner because of a rash, sore throat, and fever; I was prescribed some topical ointment for the rash and sent home.
..... I received the results of my 6-month antibody test and got the most devastating news of my life: I was HIV positive. I do not think that words can accurately describe my emotions at this time. I felt suffocated, desperate, fearful, dirty, contaminated, and confused. Nothing in my education, on-the-job training, or critical care course could have prepared me for the experiences and emotion that lay ahead.
I have only recounted a few of these. Nurses badly need this legislation. There are all kinds of things that can be done to protect these people who are being stabbed inadvertently. There are needles that retract. Too many of our front-line health care workers contract, as I have indicated, these debilitating and often deadly diseases as a result of these on-the-job needlestick inj uries.
Those at risk for needlestick or sharp injuries include anyone who handles blood, blood products, and biological samples, as well as housekeeping staff and those responsible for the disposal of contaminated materials.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, we have only a few of the reported sticks each year; 800,000 people have reported needlesticks and sharps injuries. There are many more who do not report.
We do not actually know the number of needlestick inj uries.
Over 20 different diseases--including HIV, hepatitis B and C, and malaria--may be transmitted from just a speck of blood.
This amendment that has been offered would ensure that necessary tools--better information and better medical devices--are made available to front-line health care workers in order to reduce injuries and deaths that result from these needlesticks.
What would my amendment do?
It would amend OSHA's--that is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration--blood-borne pathogens standard to require that employees use needleless systems and sharps with engineered sharps protections to prevent the spread of blood-borne pathogens in the workplace.
Second, create a sharps injury log that employers would keep containing detailed formation about these injuries that occur.
And finally, it would establish a new clearinghouse within the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH, to collect data on engineered safety technology designed to help prevent the risk of needlesticks.
In the House of Representatives, this legislation is sponsored by 136 of their Members. Protecting the health and safety of our front-line health care workers should not be a partisan or political issue. We need something done.
I have been told that the chairman of the committee, the junior Senator from Vermont, is aware of the problem in this area and has indicated a willingness to work to come up with regulations that we can work with the administration on or legislation, if in fact that is necessary--which I think it is--to prevent these needlestick inj uries--and they are preventable, and we as a body need to do something about it.
Mr. SPECTER. If the distinguished Senator would yield on that point?
Mr. REID. I am happy to yield.
Mr. SPECTER. Senator JEFFORDS would be willing to work with the Senator from Nevada on a bipartisan approach to needlestick pre vention. I have not heard the issue broached at the hearings, but I will urge Senator JEFFORDS to include that in working with the Senator from Nevada. The issue poses a problem on the appropriations bill. This is authorization on an appropriations bill, and it is subject to our rule XVI which precludes that. But more fundamentally, it has not been aired with many of the interested parties. I am sympathetic to what the Senator from Nevada seeks to accomplish. I think there are problems. I found out about it for the first time yesterday, and I say that in no way to be critical.
That is what happens here. When we take it up, we have heard rural hospitals would find it difficult in its present posture. I am told by CBO that there is a substantial cost figure involved. I don't cite it with any authority, but they are talking about $50 million. I don't quite see that, but that has been reported to me.
I compliment Senator REID for calling attention to the issue, for focusing on it, for raising it and taking a big step in having consideration by the authorizing committee. I will urge Senator JEFFORDS to include hearings as well as a cooperative approach to try to work it out.
Mr. REID. I say to the manager of the bill, I appreciate his statement. I understand rule XVI. It was my initial idea because I think this is so important. Every nurse in America, every day they go to work, is concerned about whether or not they have a needlestick. Nu rses all over America favor this. It was my original intention to move forward and see if we could get enough votes to surmount the problem with rule XVI.
I think we have the opportunity to do something on a bipartisan basis. I do not believe something this important should be done on a partisan basis. I think we should make this a bill both Democrats and Republicans support. I have spoken to the Senator from California, Mrs. BOXER, who has worked on this with me from the very beginning. She is someone who feels very strongly about this issue. I have spoken to the other sponsor of the legislation, Senator KENNEDY. They acknowledge the need for this and also the fact technology now exists to protect health care workers from needlesticks, but only 15 percent of those hospitals are using safer needle devices such as retractable needles.
THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents