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Washington Watch 
American
Journal of Nursing - December, 2000 - Volume 100, Issue 12
A Victory for Nurses
Needlestick prevention
legislation is passed by Congress and signed into law
By Stephanie Reed
Efforts by the ANA and its
constituent member associations (CMAs) to educate the public and lawmakers
in the perils of unsafe needle devices paid off November 6, when President
Clinton signed needlestick prevention legislation into law. The
Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act (H.R. 5178 and S. 3067) was passed
by unanimous vote in both the House and Senate in October.
Over the past several years, the ANA and many of its members have been
actively involved in championing needlestick prevention legislation to
protect health care workers from the approximately 800,000 needlestick
injuries that occur in the United States annually. To demonstrate the need
for this legislation, Karen Daley, MPH, RN, president of the Massachusetts
Nurses Association, Lynda Arnold, RN, a member of the Pennsylvania State
Nurses Association, and Lisa Black, RN, a member of the Nevada Nurses
Association, repeatedly shared with lawmakers their personal stories of
how needlestick injuries changed their lives. After more than 25 years as
a staff nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Daley left
clinical practice in January 1999 after contracting HIV and hepatitis C
from a needlestick injury; Black also contracted both diseases from a
needlestick injury; and Arnold contracted HIV from a needle.
“These courageous nurses can now begin to see the fruits of their
labor,” said ANA president Mary Foley, MS, RN. “They shared their stories
in order to put a face on the tragedy of needlestick injury and
unselfishly worked to protect their colleagues and other health care
workers in the workplace. They represent the countless number of nurses
who experienced this same tragedy. I commend these women for their efforts
and rejoice with them in the passage of this legislation.”
The Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act amends the existing
Bloodborne Pathogen Standard administered by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration to require the use of safer devices to protect
health care workers from sharps injuries. It also requires that employers
solicit the input of nonmanagerial employees who are responsible for
direct patient care regarding the identification, evaluation, and
selection of effective engineering and work-practice controls.
In addition, the bill requires employers to maintain a sharps injury
log to document, at a minimum, the type and brand of device involved in
each incident; the department or work area in which the exposure occurred;
and an explanation of how the incident happened. The information would be
recorded and maintained in a way that would protect the confidentiality of
injured employees. The log would serve as an important source of data to
help determine the relative effectiveness and safety of currently used
devices and to guide the development of future products.
The House of Representatives bill was introduced by Representatives
Cass Ballenger (R-NC) and Major Owens (D-NY). The identical Senate bill
was introduced by Senators James Jeffords (R-VT), Edward Kennedy (D-MA),
Michael Enzi (R-WY), and Harry Reid (D-NV), who sponsored the original
Senate needlestick protection bill introduced in 1997. Because they
represent a wide range of ideological perspectives, these lawmakers were
pivotal in securing the legislation’s passage in the waning days of the
106th Congress. Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA) and Marge Roukema
(R-NJ), the first House sponsors of earlier needlestick legislation, also
lent considerable support to the Ballenger–Jeffords legislation.
“The nursing community appreciates the strong leadership and commitment
shown by the sponsors of this legislation, who put aside partisan
differences to provide this historic and necessary protection,” noted
Foley. “This legislation will ensure substantial reduction in the hundreds
of thousands of needlestick injuries that occur annually.”
For More Information To learn more about the legislative
outcomes of the 106th Congress, go to The Government
Affairs section of NursingWorld.
Visit http://nursingworld.org/needlestick/nshome.htm
for more information about protecting yourself through the use of safer
devices.
Stephanie Reed is an assistant director in the ANA’s Department of
Government Affairs.
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