Nursing can be hazardous to health

Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York - Nationwide

By HARVY LIPMAN
STAFF WRITER
December 3, 2007

More than half of New Jersey's hospital nurses have suffered injuries from lifting or moving patients in the past five years, according to a survey being released today by the state's biggest nurses union.

Nearly two-thirds said they had also been exposed to so-called "superbugs" like MRSA, the staphylococcus bacteria that is resistant to the strongest antibiotics. And a third said they have been exposed to violence in their workplaces.

As a result, the survey found, almost 60 percent of nurses have considered leaving the profession due to the hazards they face while caring for their patients.

The Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, which represents 12,000 health-care workers, released the report as the state Legislature is expected to take up two bills this week that would require hospitals to establish programs on violence prevention and the safe handling of patients who need to be moved.

"There are definitely things that can be done to improve safety in the nurses' workplace," said union President Ann Twomey. "Safe patient handling equipment is available. Some of it is not expensive, some of it is."

More than 1,000 registered nurses were surveyed in 2007 by Anzalone Research in a study commissioned by Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a health care workers union.

Twomey argued that hospitals would enjoy both short-term and long-term financial benefits from improving nurses' working conditions. The survey found that 25 percent of all nurses had missed time from work due to injury.

"When you have people getting injured every day, they're losing time at work, and the hospitals end up subbing for them by hiring high-cost nurses from personnel agencies," she said. "The hospitals are already facing a severe shortage of nurses and all health care workers. You would prevent nurses from suffering these chronic back injuries that cause them to leave the profession before they should. Plus, when patients aren't moved properly they get hurt and end up staying longer in the hospital."

Assemblyman Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said hospitals also would benefit from lower worker's compensation costs.

"Most of these devices are relatively inexpensive," he said. "They range from what you might describe as a super air mattress that you put under the patient and inflate, to devices where the patient is put in a sling and raised from a gurney to the bed. The problem is that the hospitals don't need to buy just one of these devices; they need to buy several for each unit."

With the state's hospitals facing a fiscal crisis -- a report last week by the New Jersey Hospital Association found that hospitals' average operating margin shrank to less than 1 percent last year -- the legislative leadership is hesitant to enact any measures that puts additional financial pressure on them, Gordon added.

However, the state association has endorsed both bills.

"We're supportive of both [bills] as measures to keep our employees and our patients safe," Randy Minniear, assistant vice president for legislation and policy at the New Jersey Hospital Association, said Friday.

He said earlier concerns about the costs of implementing some changes and how long hospitals would have to do so have been addressed with changes in the bills.

Union spokeswoman Jeanne Otersen said the bills would give hospitals and nursing homes six years to develop and institute worker safety programs.

Officials of North Jersey hospitals could not be reached for comment Sunday. But Englewood Hospital and Medical Center announced Friday that it has established what it said is the first safe patient handling system in the state. The hospital has installed new hydraulic equipment and devices in nursing units and in clinical departments to facilitate the safe lifting and moving of patients.

"Every day our nurses and staff move, lift and turn patients who may easily weigh more than 200 pounds," Pat Brigley, the hospital's occupational health coordinator, said in a statement accompanying the announcement. "Our goal is to create a cultural change in how we lift and move patients, to keep them safe and to reduce the strain and injuries to our staff."