Copyright 2000 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San
Francisco Chronicle
JUNE 23, 2000, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A5
LENGTH: 691 words
HEADLINE:
S.F. Nurse Asks Congress to Halt Epidemic' of Needle Accidents
BYLINE: Carolyn Lochhead, William Carlsen, Chronicle
Washington Bureau
DATELINE: Washington
BODY:
Taking her crusade for safe needles to
Washington yesterday, San Francisco nurse Lorraine Thiebaud urged Congress to
pass legislation to reduce the estimated 600,000 needle accidents that each year
threaten medical workers with deadly blood-borne infections.
Thiebaud,
speaking for the Service Employees International Union, which represents 710,000
doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and other health care workers, told
legislators that accidental needle sticks are "epidemic,"
exposing hospital workers to HIV, Hepatitis C and other pathogens.
Most
hospitals, she said, continue to use needles without safety devices because of
resistance to the higher cost of safer needles, even though 1,000 health care
workers each year contract serious and potentially deadly infections from
accidental sticks.
Thiebaud and others pushing for a national
safe-needle law sponsored by Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, got a surprisingly warm
reception at the House subcommittee on Workforce Protections, despite the
Republican-led panel's generally skeptical attitude toward expansion of
workforce safety regulations. Chairman Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., even joked to
Occupational Safety and Health Administration chief Charles Jeffress, "I think I
like this better than ergonomic regulations, just to let you know," referring to
the ongoing battle between Congress and OSHA over new regulations covering
repetitive motion injuries.
Karen Daley, representing the American
Nurses Association, told the committee how she was stuck by a needle carrying
HIV and Hepatitis C in July 1998 when working in a hospital emergency room. The
accident "dramatically changed my life," she said.
Daley said her
illnesses have "cost me much more than I can ever describe in words." The cost
of her care alone has probably reached $100,000, she said.
Daley said the cost of safer needles pales compared to the expense of
testing and treating workers for needle injuries.
Even when no
infections occur, one high-risk needle stick runs about $3,000
for tests and preventive medication, Daley said, or $1.8
billion a year nationwide.
Daley cited estimates showing that one
serious infection can cost as much as $1 million for treatment
and disability. Hepatitis C cases, she said, account for the majority of costly
liver transplants.
The first law requiring the use of safety needles was
adopted in California in 1998 following a series of articles in The Chronicle
about the epidemic of accidental needle sticks in the nation's medical
facilities.
The articles disclosed that syringes with safety features
had been available for nearly 10 years but were not being provided to medical
workers because they were more expensive.
By the mid-1990s, a broad
range of safety needles and syringes were being marketed, including blood
collection devices with self-blunting needles, spring-loaded syringes that
retracted their needles into the barrel after use, and needles that were
protected by sliding plastic sheaths. The cost of the new devices ranged from a
few pennies to many times the price of the standard syringe and needle.
Since California enacted its safer needle law, 14 other states have
approved similar regulations. Two more states -- New York and Ohio -- have
passed bills that are currently awaiting governors' signatures, and similar
legislation is being considered in several other states.
Stark now has
186 co-sponsors for his legislation, which would make the California law a
national standard.
"When a hospital in Pennsylvania got a
$13 million judgment against them for a wrongful death, that
was a wake-up call for all these guys," Stark said.
Still, the outlook
for passage this year remains dim, partly because time is running out in this
Congress. But even if the bill fails to move this year, Stark said chances are
good it will pass next year, given that "Republicans have finally discovered"
the issue.
E-mail William Carlsen at wcarlsen@sfgate.com and
Carolyn Lochhead at lochheadc@sfgate.com. This article was reported by William
Carlsen in San Francisco and Carolyn Lochhead in Washington.
LOAD-DATE: June 23, 2000 
