Health Hazards in Nursing

Occupational wellness Hazards in the aesculapian Field Kim Chastain AB TECH April 24, 2012 Abstract health check staff office come into feeling with a complex variety of deadly toxins. disturb comes from industrial cleaners, sterilization products, radiation, medications, and mercury. Side effects of these toxic materials ar cognise to lead to a variety of cancers, miscarriages, asthma, birth defects and metabolic syndromes. Government agencies move over been negligent in cling toing healthc ar civiliseers from vulnerabilitys to these materials.There has never been a government-funded pick out of these materials and their doctor on health and the environment however independent studies find sh aver higher order of disease in healthcargon professionals and their children. According to environmental working(a) Group (2007), of the 82,000 chemicals in record still around cardinal hundred and eighty sustain been tested. Thousands of pollutants can be entrap in both medical move yet only half dozen have government workplace safety standards.Exposure standards fall to individual facilities to regulate, and vary wildly depending on facility understanding of these toxins. Continued training is recommended when new chemicals and equipment be changed. Healthc ar facilities should also be tested on a per year basis to identify areas of contami race to the employee and patient. Keywords Toxin, hazards, occupational disease In 1970 chairperson Nixon and Congress instituted OSHA to create a safe working environment and NIOSH (The case Institute for Occupational natural rubber and Health) to research workplace hazards.While OSHA and NIOSH have egest guidelines for common biohazard procedures, almost nothing exists for chemical and toxin delineations. From doctors and nurses to janitors and mail deli very, anyone who comes into contact with these toxins is at assay. The nature of the nurse or doctors ikon is two crimp consumer contaminates fr om home and industrial contaminates from work. Illnesses reported by medical personnel localise from chronic skin dermatitis and asthma to acute life threatening conditions out of date cancers, spontaneous abortions, metabolic syndromes and birth defects.The importance of studying the multigenerational gentle impact of these contaminates is not only to help the lives of the medical employee, but would result in helping to determine the effects on the population as well. Individuals that work in health compassionate should be aware of workplace exposure to hazardous materials rig in the medical sedulousness to better protect themselves. While the government plays catch up with science individuals must be proactive in learning about the dangers and what they can do to adjudge their workplace safer. Locating the DangerIt is no surprise that toxins can be found in a medical setting. What does surprise experts is that there are not more regulations and education on how to bobby p in them. There is no point of the impact that these contaminates have on medical personnel and their families. environmental functional Group (EWG) conducted a survey in 2007 to examine exposure and its effects regarding nurses. Fifteen hundred nurses were asked in a survey to list exposure to el tied(p) common toxins found in a medical setting and health problems seen in their children and themselves. The entropy is staggering.Organizations around the world have conducted their own investigations into workplace exposure and have found the same results. The conclusion is a global pandemic of cancer, miscarriages and illness never before seen in any other workplace. Figure 1 (Environmental Working Group, 2007) An article by warble Smith (2010) presents InvestigateWests examination into the regulations surrounding medication exposure regulations and chronicles the impact they arrest by following the illness of pharmacist Sue Crump. Ms. Crump at the time of the interview was in th e end stages of pancreatic cancer.Crump had spent 23 years working in the medical industry mixing chemo drugs. InvestigateWest found that no government agency has any regulations on exposure to drugs even those that OSHA has deemed as hazardous. OSHA defines hazardous drugs to knowingly cause cancer, birth defects and other illness. doubting Thomas Conner, a researcher for the National Institute for Occupational safety and Health has spent four decades studying chemo medications on personnel. He emphasizes that, There is no other occupation population (that handles) so many cognise human carcinogens (Lifesaving Drugs, Deadly Consequences, 2010, para. 1 ). Unlike the US, European countries have taken nib and placed stronger standards to protect its workers, and most have replaced most toxins with green chemicals. dickens Danish studies have found a significant increased riskiness of leukemia among oncology nurses and physicians and extreme risks of multiple cancers for medical w orkers (A Silent Threat, 2010, para. 10). Concerned over the suppuration number of studies NIOSH issued an alert on the dangers of handling toxic drugs however they are only recommendations and OSHA has no intent on making them regulatory.According to the Environmental Working Groups Survey on Nurses (2007), starting with the Toxic Substance Control suffice in 1976, the EPA has not reviewed or even begun gathering safety selective information for more than eighty percent of the chemicals produced or imported in yearbook quantities exceeding ten thousand pounds (The System is Broken, para. 4). This brings in to question the very nature of the agencies that have been put into place to protect its citizens. There seems to be no clear cut standard for how these government agencies handle the data and respond to the people or each other.While each one understandably knows and verifies the existence of the dangers they do nothing about it. Common Toxins Anesthetic gunslinger Anesthesi a is commonly apply in dental and surgical procedures. Gases efflux can from facemasks, tubes and even regulating machines that were created to control exposure. Although NIOSH has recommended exposure limits for many gases utilize it is primarily to protect the worker during the procedure. These gases have been found to increase neurological issues, lowered fertility in men and women, miscarriage and higher pastures of birth defects in children articulalry neurological complications. Medications According to EWG, the FDA has approved close to six thousand medications. Even in trace amounts these medications can pose upright effects. No study has ever been conducted to examine the hazard of combining medications in humans. Some chemo drugs are capable of damaging DNA and are known cause certain types of rare cancer. Antiretroviral drugs used for HIV treatment are even more dangerous to a developing fetus. Unnecessary exposure to medication has been linked to everything from ski n rashes, asthma, cancer, infertility, and birth defects.latex paint and personal care products Latex is a common material used in gloves, catheters, and other plastics. individual(prenominal) care items range from shampoo to shaving cream used by patients. Both were linked to asthma and allergies, ranging from mild reactions to life threatening anaphylaxes. Medical professionals have already been found to have to leave the job because of the unassumingness of their allergies. Mercury containing devices Mercury can still be found in devices ranging from thermometers, blood pressure cuffs to non-medical devices, such as batteries and thermostats.It is known to be super toxic to the brain and nervous dodge. Neurological disorders have been found to be higher in medical personnel than other occupations. Children born to nurses loose during pregnancy have higher degrees of developmental delays and central nervous system diseases. Radiation Radiation can be found in medications and used in life saving medical devices. Imaging machines, such as MRI and CAT scans, have been shown to emit radiation even when protections are in place. Radiation exposure has been proven to cause an increased rate of miscarriage, cancer and birth defects. SterilizationEthylene oxide & Glutaraldehyde are chemicals used to sterilize anything that cannot be sterilise by steam. Whether the exposure was from the liquid form or spread by means of evaporation it has been linked allergies, anemia and severe migraines. Recommendations Although many of these contaminates are needed, nimble action should be taken place to insure the health of everyone who flora near them. Rigorous standards for the handling of and the exposure to toxins updated and complete profiles for chemicals and their affects on health and the environment and investigations on healthcare personnel and their childrens lifespans.Education should be as fast paced as chemical production. Healthcare facilities should have mandatory guidelines for replacement hazards with green alternatives when available and only extensively trained personnel allowed to handle them. Conclusions Since the inception of control and regulation of toxins and chemicals the government has banned production of only one chemical, and set very few exposure standards for personnel that are exposed to them. Its apparent in the data that whats being through currently is not working.No other workforce has been asked not only to risk their lives but the lives of their children as well. Bringing to mind the aftermath of 9/11, when the nation watched as military, medical personnel, police, FEMA, and firemen ran to act. Only this time no one seems to be watching. Families of medical workers, like Sue Crumb, have been left to wonder why nothing has been done. It has been reported that the nursing shortage is over but is evaluate to reemerge again by 2020 as the largest employed group of nurses retire.If the healthcare industry contin ues to be a hazard to its staff one could only comport that the shortage will become worse. No one can recall that the current burden on the healthcare system is extreme. When our health care professionals begin to get sick the burden will become greater. 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