VERMONT NURSES URGE OSHA STANDARD REPLACEMENT
Posted over 2 years ago by Meredith Roberts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
ANA-Vermont
Meredith Roberts Executive Director ANA-Vermont
Jessilyn Dolan, President ANA-Vermont
Michelle Wade, President, Vermont Nurse Practitioners Association
VERMONT NURSES URGE OSHA STANDARD REPLACEMENT
Date: January 11, 2022
American Nurses Association-Vermont (ANA-VT) and the Vermont Nurse Practitioner Association support the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) setting a permanent standard to replace the Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that provided critical protections for nurses and other health care workers on the frontlines during the pandemic. However, until the permanent standard is in place, the temporary standard must be swiftly replaced to protect the health workforce.
Nationally, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has adamantly supported OSHA’s use of its authority to prevent COVID-19 infection of health care professionals. Prior to the June 21 ETS, nearly a half million people working in health care contracted COVID-19, and over 1,600 had died. In December 2021, OSHA noted “With the rise of the Delta variant this fall, and now the spread of the Omicron variant this winter, OSHA believes the danger faced by healthcare workers continues to be of the highest concern and measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are still needed to protect them”. Health care employers were encouraged to protect employees from hazardous situations that too often causes death or serious physical harm. OSHA offered to “vigorously enforce the general duty clause and its general standards, including the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and Respiratory Protection Standards, to help protect healthcare employees from the hazard of COVID-19”.
To rescind the temporary standard after stating they would vigorously protect workers, and without a concrete plan to do so is unconscionable. According to National American Nurses Association President Ernest J. Grant, PhD, RN, FAAN, the ETS set an “imperative for all health care employers to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), and to observe evidence-based safety protocols such as time off for voluntary staff vaccinations, indoor masking, physical distancing, and safe care of COVID-19 patients.” President Grant added, “It would be baffling and concerning if OSHA allowed this ETS to lapse as cases and hospitalizations rise and the omicron variant begins to sweep across the country. Nurses are feeling stressed, frustrated, and exhausted from nearly two years of battling COVID-19. They know that the federal government plays a critical role in ensuring their safety. The ETS must be renewed without delay and vigorously enforced”.
To protect the health and well-being of American nurses and health care workers, ANA-VT strongly urges OSHA to safeguard the health and well-being of American nurses and health care workers by renewing the ETS as soon as possible followed swiftly by putting a permanent standard in place. Nurses, including the Executive Director of ANA-VT, became ill with COVID-19 because barriers were not in place back in 2020. In 2022 we can and need to do better. The 2021 standard required health care providers screen patients for COVID-19, and mandated that policies and procedures comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, with required personal protective equipment and physical requirements such as barriers at work stations.
United States. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh noted “COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on workers, and we continue to see dangerous levels of cases. We must take action…” Lives of health care personnel must not be endangered because policymakers fail to take the necessary actions to protect them. Vermont patients should not have to worry that the health care worker providing for them might give them COVID-19. Health care providers are entitled to protections that provide a safe workplace.
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ANA-Vermont is a Constituent State Nursing Association of the American Nurses Association.
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