Safety

Breaking the backs of homecare workers

OSHA Healthcare Connection, December 19, 2006

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Home healthcare work may be the most injury-prone occupation in healthcare and the least protected by government regulations.

"Government agencies responsible for enforcing labor laws, like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, have turned a blind eye to home healthcare workers," says Peggy Smith, an expert in employment law at the University of Iowa, in a December 13 United Press International report.

Smith acknowledges that there is a problem in how to regulate workplace conditions when the workplace is a private residence. The situation will only worsen as more children of elderly parents hire workers to provide services.

Client lifting is the greatest hazard to home healthcare workers, whose back-injury incidence rate is nearly three times that of nursing personnel in hospitals and nursing-home settings.



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