This is just plain unacceptable. Nurses are often left with really bad back injuries and end up having to stay on serious pain medication for much of their lives — mostly because hospitals won’t pay for enough equipment and staff to prevent it. Now the Obama administration’s going to keep them from filing OSHA reports that will document later claims? Bah.
National Nurses United (NNU) is sharply criticizing the Obama administration for a decision by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Tuesday to withdraw a rule requiring employers to report musculoskeletal injuries to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“This is a disturbing sign that the Obama administration may be putting the economic interests of employers ahead of the safety of nurses and other working people,” says Karen Higgins, RN, co-president of the 160,000-member nurses union.
The decades-old rule was pulled by the DOL at the request of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, according to NNU.
“Nursing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S., and nurses are especially subject to serious back and other musculoskeletal injuries,” says Higgins. “One step we can take to keep nurses safe and at work is to have an accurate picture of when and how they are hurt on the job.”
Serious back injuries typically are caused by nurses lifting and turning patients, and can lead to permanent disability.
An ethics class is required in my school’s nursing degree program, so I have a bunch of nursing students every semester. I am going to pass this information on to the class as an example of the social nature of ethics.
Our damnable elites need more than classes in ethics — they need strong and sure punishment for lack of same. And these kinds of actions show clear and strong evidence of lack of ethics, much less empathy.
Reading this makes me sick to my stomach. I was in a NJ burn center for 30 days this summer, and while the doctors were great, the nurses and the other staff were so important to my recovery. Indeed, one of the techs, not a nurse but one of the people who worked directly with the patients each and every day providing bathing and bandaging (yes, under direction of the doctors, but these people had actual “hands on” experience with what worked and didn’t work with various types of wounds and also locations on the body –some areas are more difficult to bandage than others, as readers might imagine) were lower paid, of course, but, to me, they were of inestimable value.
A couple of these techs, who were mostly women, but not all, really thought long and hard about how to improve my bandaging. A couple of them implemented changes which resulted in keeping the important silver sulfadiazine cream on the wounds longer and resulted in faster healing. It also resulted in more comfort for me, bless them. Oh, I still thank them for their care…and caring.
One of the services these people provided was to have shampoo and conditioner on hand for patients who were longer term, some of whom didn’t have people to bring things in for them. The hospital used to provide regular shampoo and conditioner for patients, but had cut that as part of cost saving. The techs told them baby shampoo didn’t work well for many adults’ hair, but were told to make do. So they, on their own dime, bought and brought into the unit regular shampoos and conditioners!
I can tell you it was a godsend to have at least my hair under control. I told them how much I appreciated what they did in everything and promised I would bring in shampoo and conditioners when I could do so. Such a little thing, and they were so glad to receive the items. Here were people using their wages to make their patients more comfortable.
I also worried about how much physical strain they were under as they had to manipulate patient’s bodies to get them into positions, with as little pain as possible, to get the bandages on them. Not easy with some who were large, overweight, or just unable to move easily.
Many of the nurses and techs in the “tank room,” as the bathing, bandaging area was called, already had back problems, so this article makes me boiling mad. Nurses and nursing assistants, it seems, are in danger of back problems due to having to move patients. And, now, there are fewer people around to assist a nurse, it seems.
How dare these Democratic administration elites treat these hard working, invaluable people like dirt???
For the same reason contracts about bonuses for banksters are sacred and contracts with regular workers are open to rescinding to cut costs….
How do we get people to realize our leaders do not have their interests, much less best interests, at heart? That they act for and on behalf of their Uberwealthy Overlords?
How do we get the leadership we need?