Feds look to curb workplace violence
- OSHA is initiating a series of meetings with small businesses focused on protecting healthcare workers from violent patients.
- The meetings are mandatory before OSHA can issue a proposed workplace violence prevention rule for the healthcare industry.
- The agency began work on the rule in 2016 after lawmakers and healthcare unions demanded the agency issue a higher standard.
- The Covid-19 pandemic became OSHA’s primary healthcare issue in 2020, delaying progress on the workplace violence rule.
Fatalities rise in North Caroinas’s workplaces
- North Carolina had the largest number of non-COVID-19 work-related deaths last year based on preliminary information by the N.C. Department of Labor.
- The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Division inspected 63 non-COVID-19 work-related fatalities that occurred in 2022.
- The division also inspected three cases reported as deaths related to COVID-19.
- The construction industry suffered the most work-related fatalities with 21 in 2022, six more than in 2021.
Firefighters face bigger cancer risks
- NIOSH wants to understand and prevent firefighters’ risk of cancer and plans to do more research on the issue.
- Firefighters face a higher risk of cancer than the general public, according to NIOSH, because of exposure to smoke, hazardous chemicals, and hazardous substances in fire settings.
- Nearly 75% of the names added to its Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial last year were members who died from job-related cancer, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters.
- NIOSH encourages all U.S. firefighters to enroll in a registry via a secure web portal to help with the research.
Sanitation worker injured while riding on back of truck
- OSHA was asked to open an investigation after an accident in Jamesport, New York, seriously injured a sanitation worker riding on the back of a garbage truck.
- A garbage truck backed into a parked dump truck, causing a serious injury to the leg of the worker riding on the back step of the garbage truck.
- The first police officer to respond to the scene immediately rendered first aid to the victim, whom police identified as Javier Palma-Guevara.
- The victim was airlifted by Suffolk County Police helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital.