The head of a new safety association for the health care industry spoke to the board members of the Sun Country Health Region on Mar. 28, with a view to dealing with an "epidemic" of workplace injuries in health care facilities.
The head of a new safety association for the health care industry spoke to the board members of the Sun Country Health Region on Mar. 28, with a view to dealing with an "epidemic" of workplace injuries in health care facilities.
George Marshall, the new CEO of Saskatchewan Association for Safe Workplaces in Health, shared some startling numbers on workplace injuries.
Over the last five years in the province, workers in health care facilities have missed 472,000 days of work due to injuries.
Marshall said this is the equivalent of losing almost 2,400 workers for an entire year, or losing the entire Sun Country Health Region for an entire year.
"The numbers are staggering, particularly for a province of this size," said Marshall, adding the numbers for 2010 alone are that 5,034 employees were injured on the job in the health care industry in Saskatchewan.
Broken down by job type, the largest single group of injuries, about 31 per cent, occur to nurse aides, orderlies and patient service; second is "other" at 18 per cent, registered nurses at 16 per cent, licensed practical nurses at 8 per cent, light duty cleaners at 6 per cent, then food counter attendants and kitchen helpers at 5 per cent.
Marshall pointed out that when this occurs in health care, not only does it make the facilities short-staffed, but the injured sometimes end up as patients in health care.
The level of injuries in one year is seen by removing 423 vital employees from the system with 84,638 days missed, then about 5,034 injured workers are then new patients in the system.
Thus the new safety association was formed, said Marshall, established in March of 2010, governed by a board of directors equally representing management and labour.
The vision of the association is to make workplace health and safety a priority, and as Marshall pointed out, currently it is not a priority.
"Do people know what to do? Are they trained? If we're having 580 workers injured every year, it's not a priority," he said.
Some of the strategic priorities of the new association is to promote the value that injury and illness prevention brings to the workplace, and to promote the establishment of accountability for OH&S rules in the workplace.
"It's not a cost, it saves you money," added Marshall.
The association also wants to promote the adoption of evidence-based leading practices and provincial OH&S standards, and to provide training and education that suppors injury and illness prevention.
Since the association started up, there has been some improvement starting to be seen, said Marshall, noting that between 2006 and 2010, time loss injuries have dropped by seven per cent in health care, while in other industries, time-loss injuries have dropped by 23 per cent in the same time period.
The fact is, said Marshall, in the period of 2006-2010, total injury rates have increased by four per cent in health care, while overall in the province injury rates have dropped by 15 per cent in the same time period. Marshall added that in the hotel industry alone, they had a 40-per-cent reduction in workplace injuries in one year.
"The numbers are far worse than what I'm saying," said Marshall, and said to the board of trustees, "As leaders, you have the ability to set the tempo on this issue."
He added that leaders need to say, "Enough is enough", and noted with workplace injuries, it's not just the worker who is affected, but "it's very devastating for the families and co-workers."
Marga Cugnet, interim CEO of Sun Country, said with a commitment from the leadership of the health region, "Hopefully this will make safety a top priority, and we'll make more of a difference."
