Introduction
I am one of the registered nurses (RN) who has been certified by the American Board for Specialty Nursing Certification (ABSNC). Additionally, I serve as a nurse administrator in my current hospital, which is another position that stems from the ABSNC accreditation. My role as an RN entails providing, coordinating patient care, and educating patients and the public on the health conditions they are likely to contract given certain lifestyles and exposures. Along with patient education, I facilitate emotional support to the patient and their families, which is one of the factors that hasten their prognosis. Besides being an RN, my administrative position allows me to supervise and manage other nurses while at the same time overseeing if the healthcare facilities function efficiently. Generally, my RN and administrative positions have allowed me to work in nursing homes, urgent care clinics, and even physician hospitals.
The main purpose of this presentation is to discuss the health and safety considerations for nurses while in their occupation. Typically, nursing encompasses administering hazardous drugs, handling patients with highly infectious diseases, and handling sharp objects such as needles and lancets and patient-based electrical appliances. These objects predispose nurses to risks such as contracting diseases from the patients, getting electrocuted by hospital appliances, or even getting infected with nosocomial infections as nurses serve different patients. Therefore, nurses need to be accorded the proper personal protection equipment (PPEs) and other safety gear by the hospital (Armstrong, 2018). Collaborating between policymakers and the administrative bodies of various hospitals is required to ensure that nurses are protected. Laws and policies requiring hospitals to ensure their staff is protected need to be enacted to confer nurse lee.
Workplace Health and Safety for Nurses
Workplace health and safety entails a multidisciplinary field concerned with the health, safety, and welfare of the people holding a given occupation. Health and safety in an organization entail acknowledging the work activities that can cause illness and injury and acting to eliminate the hazard. In nursing, workplace safety is a concern as the profession is dynamic and handles new infections, some of which are lethal. Additionally, nurses are exposed to toxic substances, back injuries, stress, radiation, and even violence. In most hospitals, ethylene oxide, which is heat-sensitive, is applied as the sterilizer, especially in surgical and central care. This chemical is carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic and can impose devastating injuries on nurses (Armstrong, 2018). Therefore, workplace health and safety are succinct issues that need to be addressed from both the legislative and administrative levels of health.
The major impacts on workplace health and safety are felt when policies promoting it are lacking in a given health center. Some of the critical results, in this case, include contraction of infectious illnesses, contact with mutagenic substances, exposure to ionizing radiations, and nurse complications due to lack of supportive equipment. A lack of workplace health and safety standards can predispose a nurse to viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B, especially when drawing blood from patients with such infections. Additionally, nurses risk getting cancer when chemicals such as methoxyflurane and nitrous oxide are handled without being afforded the right PPE. Along with getting cancer, some nurses are often faced with moving obese or critically ill patients to wards on higher floors without lift assistance, which ultimately exposes them to back pains (Armstrong, 2018). Principally, some work in the X-ray units without radiation-absorbing wear, increasing their chances of getting cancer.
Ensuring there are policies advocating for workplace safety and health is important for five main reasons. Firstly, it reduces nurses’ absenteeism in the hospital, meaning every nurse will be present in their allotted wards. Reduced absenteeism will also result in increased nurse efficiency and productivity, manifested by quality care to patients and excellent disease prognosis. Thirdly, workplace health and safety policies will reduce the costs incurred in handling hospital injuries and accidents. If the policies are set, the money previously allocated for accidents and misfortunes will be channeled to other health needs, such as upgrading hospital equipment. While hospitals are not businesses, the two share commonalities, such as corporate social responsibility, whose main component is worker protection (Armstrong, 2018). A premium corporate social responsibility will draw hospital partnership funding programs that will add more capital to the hospital. Lastly, workplace safety will prevent co-infections and superinfections in patients as nurses will be protected from illnesses that can be transmitted to patients.
Nursing Opportunities
Nurses’ political and legislative advocacy role in promoting workplace health and safety will facilitate policymakers’ local, state, and federal outreach. At the local level, nurses can be elected as leaders and managers who then can contact elected officials and inform them about the safety problems such as nurses contracting infectious diseases due to lack of PPEs. Additionally, their advocacy responsibility can allow them to make members of city councils and local officials aware of the safety issues their respective hospitals suffer from. At both the state and federal levels, nurse advocates will have a chance to join a professional nursing organization with lobbyists that take nursing concerns to Capitol Hill. Along with joining these organizations, nurse advocates can run for state offices like the two nurses currently in the Florida State Legislature (Armstrong, 2018). This leading position will streamline policymaking and allow issues about nurses to be solved within short periods.
The two main ways nurses can use to ensure safety policies are made include political training and internships with elected leaders. Nurses can be guided in political education through programs that educate them on how to engage in a community, group, or national organization. This civic education can encompass them with critical analysis skills of the political theories and institutions responsible for enacting policies for nurse safety. Besides, nurses can take internships with elected leaders to allow these individuals to understand what dangers they face while on duty (Armstrong, 2018). For instance, a nurse can ask a leader to observe how they draw blood from an HIV-infected patient. The leader will have an accurate idea of what policies must be formulated in such instances.
Conclusion
Unequivocally, workplace health and safety standards for nurses are prerequisites for efficient and productive working. The lack of such practices predisposes nurses to hazardous chemicals and drugs, ionizing radiation, stress, and even back pains. Policies surrounding nursing safety will improve the quality of health services administered which translates to a robust patient prognosis. Therefore, nurses need to participate in workplace safety advocacy, which can be done in three main ways. Firstly, nurses can collaborate with elected leaders in hospitals to see the dangers they are predisposed to. Secondly, nurses need to join local political organizations such as councils and committees where they can channel their health safety grievances. Lastly, nurses need to undergo political education to become aware of how policies are made and how safety and health standards in workplace laws can be contrived.
Reference
Armstrong, N. (2018). Management of nursing workplace incivility in the health care settings: A systematic review. Workplace health & safety, 66(8), 403-410.