Nearly 50 percent of Black and Latina workers in the healthcare industry earn less than $15 per hour. Making it their minimum wage would lift 900,000 of them and their children out of poverty.
A recent poll revealed 80 percent opposition to a Trump administration proposal to allow 16- and 17-year old workers to use power-driven hoisting equipment to move patients in nursing facilities. The risk of injury to patients and to the young workers should be sufficient for the Labor Department to ditch this bad idea.
A disproportionate level of workplace violence occurs in the health care industry. Nurses, in particular, endure a huge share of the abuse.
Healthcare workers are the most assaulted workers in the US. A report from the Government Accountability Office provides the numbers, notes which states have laws on the books to address the problem, and highlights the modest actions taken to-date by federal OSHA.
In a hospital “Code Blue” will shift staff into high gear. “Code Silver” will get their adrenaline pumping, too, but for a very different reason.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: Ebola, family planning and “the conversation that matters most”
Recent pieces address healthcare workers’ safety and the research behind controlling Ebola’s spread; end-of-life planning; contraception; and more.
Public Health Science
Highlights of occupational health and safety research published in the last year
Some of the best research published in the last 12 months on worker health and safety topics is profiled in The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2013 – Summer 2014. The third edition of the report was released on Labor Day.
A Massachusetts farmworker and California postal worker collapsed while working and died; Manhattan McDonald’s workers and Chicago Dunkin’ Donuts workers walked off the job to protest excessive heat. The Senate confirms Obama’s nominees for Secretary of Labor and EPA Administrator, while advocates call on those two agencies to do more to protect healthcare workers and farmworkers.
In December 2011, the Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division published a proposed rule that would extend minimum-wage and overtime pay protections to the home care workers who assist elderly and disabled patients with their daily needs. (Re-post)
Deborah Sontag’s New York Times story about the murder of 25-year-old mental health worker Stephanie Moulton, allegedly at the hands of schizophrenic patient DeShawn Chappell, is a moving exploration of two grieving families and the many challenges facing the mental health care system. Deborah Sontag’s New York Times story about the murder of 25-year-old mental […]