When do the gloves come off?

[wolfwyndd]

BUY gloves? :lol: You're joking, right?

No, actually, I'm not. We have to buy our own gloves. As do all the jurisdictions in our area. The hospitals do not supply us with gloves.

 

[VentMedic]

No, actually, I'm not. We have to buy our own gloves. As do all the jurisdictions in our area. The hospitals do not supply us with gloves.

That can be easily remedied with a couple of phones calls to OSHA and JCAHO. If it is an ambulance service, the licensing and acceditation agencies would also love to hear about this. You are entitled to adequate safety and protection. Gloves are considered a basic requirement for protection and have been since the 1980s.

Let me know what state you are in and I am sure I can put you in touch with a few people that can levy some serious penalities on your agency. You can also take these concerns to a newspaper and I am sure they would love to know the practices of your company as a public safety issue. There are ways to get gloves. But, first you must educate yourself on the seriousness of this issue for your safety and others.

 

[wolfwyndd]

So, how many things have you touched with those gloves, contaminating that surface? The cost of gloves, which is minimal, is nothing compared to the cost of treating a MRSA, or HepC, or HIV infection resulting from being sloppy.

HepC and HIV are only spread through contact with bodily fluids, however what I believe your argument is, is your concern with spreading diseases that are spread with hand to hand type contact. the CDC recommends simply washing your hands with anti-bacterial soap to avoid infections, or spreading infections like that. That I do, but that wasn't covered in this particular topic so I didn't mention it earlier.

Just think about it next time you go on a call, how many surfaces have you touched? The radio? Cell Phone? Your nose? The door to the rig? Do you pick up the mop to wipe out the back of the rig with those same gloves? Then what.. who touches that mop next? Too easy to avoid and costly to fix. It's a no brainer to me, change 'em often.

I understand your argument, I do touch all of those things, but I also have to wonder, at what point do we have to look at the things we're doing and go, 'gee, are we maybe a little bit OCD in some of our actions?'

So let me ask you. When you go to a Public Safety store that sells BDU pants (just an example) and you buy a new pair that have been handled by everyone from the people that sew them to the person that puts them in the box for delivery and the clerk who inventories them and stocks the shelves and handles the cash register, do you put on a pair of gloves for that too? Those last ten people that were in there looking at that pair of pants may have also been EMS professionals and did they change their gloves (and wash their hands) as much as you do? I'm guess not. The point I'm trying to make is that no matter WHERE you live / work / travel / visit / etc, etc, etc there will ALWAYS be some risk of exposure to some disease. We can not mitigate ALL exposure EVERYWHERE we go, we can only minimize that exposure through due diligence. Wearing gloves when in contact with a patient and washing hands when we are finished is good enough 99.99 percent of the time.

 

[ffemt8978]

That can be easily remedied with a couple of phones calls to OSHA and JCAHO. If it is an ambulance service, the licensing and acceditation agencies would also love to hear about this. You are entitled to adequate safety and protection. Gloves are considered a basic requirement for protection and have been since the 1980s.

Let me know what state you are in and I am sure I can put you in touch with a few people that can levy some serious penalities on your agency. You can also take these concerns to a newspaper and I am sure they would love to know the practices of your company as a public safety issue. There are ways to get gloves. But, first you must educate yourself on the seriousness of this issue for your safety and others.

Can someone please clarify if the agency buys the gloves, or do they expect their individual members to supply their own? If the individuals have to purchase them, then you probably have valid grounds for an OSHA complaint. If the agency buys them, then you are being provided appropriate PPE.

 

[VentMedic]

1) NFPA 1999 EMS Standards (2003 ED)
2) OSHA: OSHA's General Description & Discussion of the Levels of Protection and
Protective Gear – 29 CFR 1926.65 App. B, Part IV, Level D

National News Release 07-1774-NAT
Nov. 14, 2007

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=14739


OSHA announces employer-paid personal protective equipment final rule

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today announced a final rule on employer-paid personal protective equipment (PPE). Under the rule, all PPE, with a few exceptions, will be provided at no cost to the employee. OSHA anticipates that this rule will have substantial safety benefits that will result in more than 21,000 fewer occupational injuries per year. The rule will be published in the Federal Register on November 15, 2007.

"Employees exposed to safety and health hazards may need to wear personal protective equipment to be protected from injury, illness and death caused by exposure to those hazards," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Edwin G. Foulke Jr. "This final rule will clarify who is responsible for paying for PPE, which OSHA anticipates will lead to greater compliance and potential avoidance of thousands of workplace injuries each year."

The final rule contains a few exceptions for ordinary safety-toed footwear, ordinary prescription safety eyewear, logging boots, and ordinary clothing and weather-related gear. The final rule also clarifies OSHA's requirements regarding payment for employee-owned PPE and replacement PPE. While these clarifications have added several paragraphs to the regulatory text, the final rule provides employees no less protection than they would have received under the 1999 proposed standard.

The rule also provides an enforcement deadline of six months from the date of publication to allow employers time to change their existing PPE payment policies to accommodate the final rule.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to assure the safety and health of America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual process improvement in workplace safety and health. For more information, visit

www.osha.gov.

 

[wolfwyndd]

Can someone please clarify if the agency buys the gloves, or do they expect their individual members to supply their own?

I apologize, I may not have properly explained myself. The individual SQUAD purchases our gloves, NOT me personally as an individual. Some of our supplies we can get restocked from the hospital where we drop the patient off. IE, nasal canula, non - rebreather, IV start kit, needles, bandages, things like that. Gloves are paid for by the squad. My point was that SOMEONE has to pay for them and SOMEONE is spending a LOT of money on them.

 

[VentMedic]

My point was that SOMEONE has to pay for them and SOMEONE is spending a LOT of money on them.

Do you know what 1 hospital day in an ICU costs? or even a med-surg floor? or the extended stay in a convalescent or nursing home afterwards?

 

[BossyCow]

We have to look at it globally. To look at the gloves as protecting just you is only part of the equation. Once contaminated, those gloves carry pathogens to every surface we touch where someone else can pick it up.

I admit to being a bit OCD on this issue. ( I get it from the distaff side of my gene pool) But, the difference between gloves and other things that are touched by many hands, are that our hands are what touch all the nasties. A simple practice of changing gloves often, followed by hand-washing can reduce the transmission of many diseases, not just the big scary ones, but flu and colds, strep throat, mono, and the millions of other pain in the neck, time lost from work, stress the immune system of those already impaired....

Sigh... admittedly, I am a freak about this topic. But its an easy fix, at low cost, and only involves being a bit more aware and retraining to a new set of habits.

 

[VentMedic]

I admit to being a bit OCD on this issue.

BossyCow,

Even your high standards of infection control are tame compared to those required in most hospitals.

We are watched and reprimanded every way immaginable if we fail to comply to the rules. Our equipment is cultured and recultured. Our infection control officers are relentless in getting our infection rates down. However, there are some things out of our control like the EMTs and Paramedics that fail to use good sense when it comes to these infection control issues.

It is also costly to have an employee off work for several weeks for a staph infection. What some may not be aware of is the number of their co-workers that may already be treated for various infections. Just like HIV and privacy amongst workers who are positive, we now have several patients in the healthcare profession that come in as outpatients for nebulized or IV antibiotics either for a pulmonary or sinus infection. Even once they are colonized, the infection may continue to give them problems especially for the sinuses. A steady diet of Vancomycin is not good. Many are embarrassed by the way they probably acquired the infection. Most of the time it was through lax precautions and could have been prevented.

 

[BossyCow]

We have the infection control supervisor from our local hospital run cultures on our rigs. Talk about an eye opener!

 

[katgrl2003]

We have the infection control supervisor from our local hospital run cultures on our rigs. Talk about an eye opener!

EWWW! I don't think I want to know what they found! :blink:

-Kat

 

[Aileana]

^haha, it would be fun to see those cultures

And personally, I don't remove my gloves til after I've gotten my patient to a bed. I then go and wipe down the truck, and all the equipment used. If I'm heading to a trauma call, I'll normally double-layer my gloves, so I can remove the top layer if it's bloody and I need to get into the cupboards or something.

 

[BossyCow]

^haha, it would be fun to see those cultures

And personally, I don't remove my gloves til after I've gotten my patient to a bed. I then go and wipe down the truck, and all the equipment used. If I'm heading to a trauma call, I'll normally double-layer my gloves, so I can remove the top layer if it's bloody and I need to get into the cupboards or something.

So, what have you touched and contaminated with those gloves along the way?

 

[emtwacker710]

I remove my gloves after the pt. has been handed over to ER staff, and I am wheeling the stretch down to the EMS room, to write the PCR and make the stretcher, if the pt. left any fluids behind, i will then put on a fresh paiur of gloves and use the cleaning solution the hospital provides (trust me you need gloves with that stuff, I got it on my skin one time and I had to flush the area because it started burning my skin), anyways, that is personally what I do, hope it helps..