Don't Get Stuck!
2005-05-05All Content Copyright 2005
National Trade Publications Inc.
DWASHINGTON – Facility managers at hospitals, dental and physicians' offices have until Tuesday to meet the requirements of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) new needlestick standard.
Following a three-month delay in enforcing the new standard, OSHA investigators will begin issuing citations on July 17 to facilities that fail to meet the new regulations, Frank Meilinger, an OSHA spokesman, tells CM e-News Daily.
The revised OSHA bloodborne pathogen mandates consideration of safer needle devices as part of the re-evaluation of appropriate engineering controls during the annual review of the employer's exposure control plan.
It also requires employers to establish a log to track needlesticks rather than only recording those cuts or sticks that actually lead to illness and to maintain the privacy of employees who have suffered these injuries.
Mandated by the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, changes to OSHA's bloodborne pathogens standard took affect in April.
By Labor Department Secretary Elaine Chao delayed enforcement of the regulation and stepped up educational efforts to assist facilities in complying with the standard.
According to OSHA statistics, up to 800,000 people per year are stuck by contaminated needles.
Many of those stuck as cleaners and custodians who come across improperly discarded needles in garbage cans, on over-head ledges and elsewhere when cleaning.
In one recent instance, a custodian was stuck by a contaminated needle while lifting a trash bag out of a can with one hand and guiding it with the other. More common means of being stuck is through compacting the trash with hands or when carrying a full bag out to a dumpster.