Copyright 1999 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San
Francisco Chronicle
NOVEMBER 24, 1999, WEDNESDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A24; EDITORIALS
LENGTH: 391 words
HEADLINE:
Health Workers' Safety Demands Safety Needles
BODY:
AN ALARMING REPORT by the Centers for Disease Control on accidental
needle sticks should be a clarion call for medical
professionals and lawmakers to demand safety needles in every health-care
facility in the country.
On Monday, the CDC reported that every year
between 600,000 and 800,000 health-care workers -- mostly nurses -- suffer
potentially lethal needle sticks, a number that could be
reduced by 80 percent with safety needles.
Yet tight-fisted bean
counters in hospitals across the nation are resisting the changeover to safer
needles because they are more expensive. Regular needles cost 5 to 7 cents;
safety needles range from about 26 to 50 cents.
The price differential,
while significant, cannot compare with the expense of testing and treating the
health-care workers who are accidentally stuck, to say nothing of the anxiety
connected with such accidents.
"Why is it that hospital executives can
have nice retractable pens to protect their $600 suits when
hospital workers can't get a simple retractable needle to save their lives?"
asks Bill Borwegen of the Service Employees International Union, the nation's
largest union of health-care workers.
It's a pointed question. Syringes
with retractable or self-blunting needles have been available for years, and
prices are coming down as the devices are becoming increasingly in demand.
Last July 1, California led the nation with a law, authored by
Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, requiring all hospitals and
health-care facilities in the state to use the safer needles.
The law
was inspired by a Chronicle series by staff writers William Carlsen and Reynolds
Holding that reported the unnecessary and unacceptable risks imposed on nurses,
doctors, technicians and housekeepers when safety needles are readily available.
Tennessee and Maryland followed with similar laws, and 20 other states
are considering legislation modeled after California's statute.
Rep.
Pete Stark, D-Fremont, has introduced federal legislation to mandate safety
needles in all U.S. medical facilities. A similar measure is pending in the
Senate.
Safety needles are a proven solution to an epidemic of needle
sticks that is infecting thousands of medical workers with dangerous blood-borne
diseases that could be avoided. Congress should act with dispatch.
LOAD-DATE: November 24, 1999
