Ingela Dahlgren and Kathy Hughes from SEIU Nurse Alliance of California, joined by Richard Negri from SEIU Local 121RN, were present at the Cal/OSHA Standards Board public hearing in Oakland today to give testimony and formally submit written comments regarding the agency’s proposed Safe Patient Handling Standard.
While California Governor Jerry Brown signed safe patient handling legislation (“Hospital Patient and Healthcare Worker Injury Protection Act,” AB 1136) into law in 2011, enacting this Standard is critical in terms of enforcement by Cal/OSHA to help put an end to the staggering amount of workplace injuries among hospital workers in the state.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 34,150 private industry healthcare workers suffered musculoskeletal injuries as a result of patient handling on the job in 2011, with nursing assistants and Registered Nurses accounting for the majority of those injuries.
“There isn’t a nurse I’ve met who doesn’t have a story of experiencing an injury while caring for a patient that took them off work either temporarily or permanently or at the very least isn’t dealing with chronic pain in their back, neck, or shoulders.” – Ingela Dahlgren, Executive Director, SEIU Nurse Alliance of California
The proposed Standard will:
- require acute care hospitals to have a safe patient handling policy for all patient care units;
- require that there are trained lift teams or staff trained in comprehensive safe patient lifting techniques and equipment;
- require the replacement of manual lifting and transferring of patients with powered or unpowered devices or lift teams;
- require recordkeeping and procedures for investigation and recording of injuries;
- require the adoption of a patient protection and healthcare worker musculoskeletal injury prevention plan that includes a safe patient handling policy component as part of the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP); and
- require that front line workers and their union representatives be involved with and participate in all aspects of a hospital’s safe patient handling program.
Richard Negri, Health and Safety Director for SEIU Local 121RN, believes that equipment availability, training, documentation and tracking mechanisms, and — most importantly — enforcement are critical parts of the proposed Cal/OSHA Standard. “Our nurses are being asked on a daily basis to lift patients without proper equipment – or without training or access to existing equipment. This puts not only our members at risk for injury, but also jeopardizes the safety of patients who are in their care.”
With the passage of the Cal/OSHA Standard, California nurses can look forward to joining our sisters and brothers in other states that have passed safe patient handling laws — states like Washington, which was among the first (in 2006) to require the purchase of safe patient handling equipment and mandate training programs. As a result of the implementation of this law, a January 2011 study found that there has been a significant decrease in musculoskeletal injuries among Washington healthcare workers.
