| Washington Watch | Issues Update | Vital Signs | Health & Safety |
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Bill would require safer needle devices
On May 20 at a Washington, DC, press conference on the introduction of needlestick legislation, Massachusetts Nurses Association President Karen Daley, MPH, RN, shared a moving account of her life since she contracted HIV and hepatitis C from a needlestick. “I can’t describe for you that one moment—the moment when I reached my gloved hand over a sharps box to dispose of the needle I had used to draw blood—which has drastically changed my life,” she said of the needlestick injury she sustained at the Boston hospital emergency room where she’s worked since 1977. “Since January of this year, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m infected with not one but two life-threatening diseases.”
Crafted by Representatives Pete Stark (D–CA) and Marge Roukema (R–NJ), as well as by representatives from the ANA, labor unions, and federal agencies, The Health Care Worker Needlestick Prevention Act (HR 1899) would amend the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) bloodborne pathogens standards; require employers to use needleless systems and sharps with engineered injury protections (called engineering controls); and ensure that health care workers are trained by their employers to identify and evaluate engineering controls. In addition, the bill would ensure that needlestick and sharps injuries continue to be recorded on the OSHA 200 logs, and would require the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to establish and maintain a national database on existing engineering controls.
Approximately one million needlestick and sharps injuries occur each year, 16,000 of which involve exposure to HIV-infected blood, and 12,000 involve exposure to hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 80% of all needlestick injuries could be prevented with safer needle devices, less than 15% of United States hospitals use these. “It is unconscionable that there are safety devices available on the market, but they’re not being offered to health care workers,” says Cecilia Mulvey, PhD, RN, a member of the ANA Board of Directors.
In the absence of federal law, many states have been addressing the issue on their own. Last year, California became the first state to mandate the use of safer needle devices. Since then, 17 states and the District of Columbia have filed safer needlestick legislation. Maryland and Tennessee recently passed theirs, while bills in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas are advancing quickly.
On May 26 similar legislation was filed in the Senate, sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer (D–CA).
Congressional fight delays ergonomics standards
Musculoskeletal injuries are a growing health and safety concern for nurses, who are increasingly sustaining injuries caused by repetitive lifting or moving of patients and heavy equipment. And since one-third of all workplace injuries are related to repetitive motion or lifting, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed an ergonomics standard in February to mandate the provision of ergonomically compliant work environments by employers.
But progress on this proposal could be delayed by a skirmish heating up in Congress. Congressional Republicans want to forestall the proposed ergonomics standard, calling it a costly health and safety requirement for employers. Representative Roy Blunt (R–MO) recently introduced legislation—the Workplace Preservation Act (HR 987)—to prevent OSHA from issuing an ergonomics standard before the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) releases its study on musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the year 2000. Congress appropriated $890,000 in fiscal year 1999 for the NAS to conduct a two-year study on workplace-related MSDs.
During an April hearing on the bill, members of the House Education and Workforce Committee were split along party lines, with Republicans arguing for patience until the NAS concludes its findings. Democrats charged that the bill was a stall tactic to delay OSHA from issuing an ergonomics standard, and displayed a 1990 video clip of former Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole voicing her commitment to releasing an ergonomics rule during her tenure. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) argued that the time needed to complete the study would “unnecessarily delay” OSHA from doing its job as the agency responsible for protecting American workers.
“Women are disproportionately affected,” Pelosi pointed out, explaining that even though women comprise 46% of the workforce and 33% of all injured workers, 63% of those who have sustained repetitive motion injuries, 69% of those who have lost work time to carpal tunnel syndrome, and 61% of those who have lost work time to tendinitis, are women.
The ANA, which has been advocating OSHA’s release of an ergonomics standard, is lobbying against the Workplace Preservation Act and against any attempt to send the legislation as a rider to the budget. In the meantime, the proposed OSHA standard is being sent to the Office of Management and Budget for a three-month review and is slated to be published in the Federal Register by September 1999.
To learn more about Karen Daley’s story and needlestick injuries, see the May–June 1999 issue of The American Nurse. To reach your senator or representative, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.