Posted: 4-May-2007 << BACK
On Tuesday, the Ontario Nurses Association said the province's government should pass proposed legislation to mandate the use of safety-engineered needles. Association President Linda Haslam-Stroud said the law would dramatically reduce nurses' risk of contracting hepatitis C and HIV at work.
Some 70,000 health care professionals across Canada are injured by needles each year and must wait for tests to determine if they have contracted diseases as a result. About 33,000 needle injuries are reported annually in Ontario.
Similar laws have passed in the United States, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan. A study suggested injuries dropped by 51 percent in the United States within the first year of the legislation, even though full compliance with the new rules took some time. In facilities that had completely changed over to safer needles, injuries were down 80 percent.
But Haslam-Stroud said she does not think the Ontario government will follow through on the bill. Labor Minister Steve Peters said the government has spent $12 million Canadian ($10.8 million US) on the safer needles but is awaiting a committee report before deciding what to do with the proposed legislation.
The government has said hospitals' costs to implement the legislation would be prohibitive. Patty Rout, vice president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said the law would actually save money. Ontario spends about $32 million Canadian ($28.9 million US) in testing and treatment for needle accidents within acute-care facilities, Rout said, while it would cost only $22 million Canadian ($19.9 million US) to buy the safety-engineered needles.
