Like A Horror Movie Plot Right In Your Facility

Like A Horror Movie Plot Right In Your Facility
A major problem faces thousands of health care and lab workers who experience more than 70,000 preventable injuries each year caused by everything from needlesticks to lancets and scalpels.
- By Isaac Rudik

Sharp needles protruding unseen in the dark. Virulent bacteria strains escaping, ready to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting city. Gory blood spills. Injured workers everywhere.

It sounds like the plot line for Wes Craven’s next horror movie but, in fact, we’re talking about a major problem facing tens of thousands of health care and lab workers every day. Indeed, Ontario health care workers experience an inordinately high number of injuries – more than 70,000 each year – caused by everything from needlesticks to lancets and scalpels. And each time someone is cut, stuck or jabbed, it carries the risk of illness and even a potentially fatal infection.

Even though few injuries result in death, they carry a very high cost to businesses, hospitals, pharmaceutical labs and manufacturers, and other organisations in health care-related sectors. The average cost for injuries that result in a worker being off from work is roughly $2,357. The total claim count of needle-stick injuries in the health care sector alone was $132,000 in 2004, the last full year for which figures are available.

Sadly, nearly all of these injuries and losses are avoidable.

Sticking Problem

The most common injuries involve needlesticks, and health care workers say that many – which can potentially spread blood-borne diseases like HIV and hepatitis – are preventable, in part by disposing of needles properly after use in hospitals, doctor’s offices and other facilities.

Recently, Joanne Brown, a St. Catharine’s, Ont. nurse, got poked with an IV needle and immediately had to be tested for HIV, and hepatitis B and C. So far, Ms. Brown's tests have come back negative but she'll face on-going testing in coming years.

"We need a law that protects people from these injuries," Ted Mansel of the Service Employees International Union told CTV News. In fact, a former Montreal dermatologist is suing the McGill University Health Centre for $1-million after he contracted AIDS through a needlestick injury in 1997. In his claim, the doctor says he tried to throw the needle into the "sharps" basket but because it was full, the needle bounced back out and pricked his left thumb.

Easy Avoidance

There is no reason to subject workers to life-threatening injuries or illnesses. There are numerous, cost-efficient, products that can minimise the risk.
For example, Medical Step-On containers are made of a non-magnetic stainless steel and have a vinyl base to protect floors. It is available in either galvanized steel or with a leak proof, rigid, plastic liner.

Medi-Can manufactures step cans that are both practical and economical for doctor’s offices and clinics. Made of a fire-safe steel, the self-closing lid fits tightly over moulded plastic gasket for maximum odour control. A plastic base ring protects floors.

Finally, Brute’s square container with snap lock lid allows collecting, transporting and shipping regulated medical waste in the same container. Its indented lid design makes stacking easy during transportation and storage, and the container can be customized with the universal bio-hazard symbol or a hospital, clinic or company logo.

With 70,000 injured workers at stake and the cost of preventing many of the injuries so low, it’s actually inexcusable for a horror movie plot to unfold in the workplace.






Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. (www.compliancesolutionscanada.com), Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.

E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.