2000 Number 3
President Signs Law to Reduce
Needlestick Injuries
On Monday, Nov. 6, President Clinton signed into law the
Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act of 2000 (H.R. 5178/S. 3067).
The legislation codifies and improves Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) regulations that require employers to use
safety-designed needles and sharps. The new law, which many AFSCME
members had lobbied for during the last two years, will take effect
July 2001.
Each year, an estimated 1,000 health care workers become infected
with a serious bloodborne disease, including hepatitis and HIV, as
the result of pricks and punctures from contaminated devices.
Prompted by the large number of injuries and technological advances
in the engineering of medical devices, last year OSHA began to
enforce a requirement that employers use safety-designed devices.
Thus, while the new law does not take effect for nine months,
employers covered by OSHA regulations already have a legal
obligation to use safer needles and sharps. Local unions do not need
to wait for the effective date of the law before demanding that
employers use safer devices. They can make those demands now.
However, the new law improves upon existing OSHA regulations in
two important ways.
1) The law requires employers to get input on the selection of
devices from non-managerial workers engaged in direct patient care.
This provision gives local unions in health care settings the
ability to be involved in selecting devices that will be most
effective in reducing injuries.
2) The law requires that employers establish a special sharps
injury log to track injuries. Information that must be recorded on
this special log includes:
- the type and brand of device involved in the injury;
- the department or work area where the injury occurred; and
- an explanation of how the injury occurred.
The detailed information from the sharps injury log will help
employers and unions identify the most effective devices and help
identify work patterns and situations that are more likely to lead
to injuries.
Gap in Application of Law
Like any federal OSHA rule, this one does not cover public sector
workers in states where state and local government employees are not
covered by the federal OSHA law. Currently, 27 states and the
District of Columbia have not passed laws to extend OSHA protections
to public workers. AFSCME is working during the final days of this
Congress to add a needlestick prevention requirement for public
hospitals in a Medicare bill moving through the House and Senate.
This provision would require public hospitals, not otherwise covered
by OSHA rules, to abide by the safe needle requirement as a
condition of receiving Medicare funds. This provision has the
support of the Clinton administration and bipartisan support in the
House of Representatives. However, there is opposition to the
provision from Senate Republicans who oppose it as an infringement
upon states’ rights.
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