Department of Veterans Affairs under OSHA investigation "failed to keep workers free from known hazards"

Department of Labor to investigate VA over staff exposure to coronavirus

Connecting Vets
Abbie Bennett
April 17, 2020

The union accused VA of further violating OSHA standards by failing to provide workers with N95 respirators "and other necessary personal protective equipment (PPE)" as well as "failing to isolate suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients and refusing to provide COVID-19 testing to employees who have been exposed to those known or suspected of having the virus."

After a union representing millions of Department of Veterans Affairs employees accused the VA of "endangering" veterans and medical staff during the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Labor said it will investigate.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sent a letter to the American Federation of Government Employees' National Veterans Affairs Council President Alma Lee saying that after the union filed a complaint on behalf of 260,000 VA employees, an investigation is planned.

OSHA "will be initiating an investigation concerning worker exposure to patients with COVID-19," the letter read.

The letter was written by Loren Sweatt, principal deputy assistant secretary for OSHA, who added that "I am contacting the VA's designated safety and health official" about the allegations.

The union's complaint alleged VA "failed to keep workers free from known hazards" and said the agency directed staff who had come in contact with or been in close proximity to people with virus symptoms, to report to work "without regard to the 14-day self-quarantine guidelines" issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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OSHA issues 19 notices to St. Cloud VA

OSHA issues 19 notices to St. Cloud VA
Jan. 18, 2012

Written by
Frank Lee

The St. Cloud VA Health Care System was issued notices by the Labor Department for unsafe and unhealthful working conditions after a July inspection, it was announced Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued 19 notices after a combined health and safety inspection as part of OSHA’s Federal Agency Targeting Inspection Program.

“The St. Cloud Veterans Affairs Health Care System failed to properly ensure the facility was in compliance with established safety and health procedures,” said Mark Hysell, director of OSHA’s Eau Claire Area Office in Wisconsin.

Eight repeat safety violations involved failing to: provide guardrails on open-sided platforms; keep exit routes free and unobstructed; implement and train workers in lockout procedures to control hazardous energy; provide training on specific powered industrial trucks; provide workers with the necessary personal protective equipment for exposure to electrical shock and arc flash hazards; and more.
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PTSD:OSHA seeks comments on Police and Stress

NIOSH Study Seeks Comments on Police and Stress
CCH - USA

SAFETY / OSHA - 7/23/08
NIOSH Study Seeks Comments on Police and Stress
There are approximately 861,000 police officers in the United States (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm)

By the nature of their jobs, many police officers face tremendous stress on a daily basis. Research has shown that police officers are at increased risk for cardiovascular events and may face an increased risk for suicide. Yet, police officers are in general an understudied occupational group. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), together with colleagues at the University at Buffalo (UB), is studying the effects of policing and stress on adverse metabolic and early stage (subclinical) cardiovascular outcomes with the ultimate goal of preventing these and other stress-related disorders.

Researchers are using a physiologic measure of stress, salivary cortisol (often called the "stress hormone"), to assess whether stress is associated with adverse metabolic outcomes (e.g., glucose intolerance and metabolic syndrome a clustering of metabolic abnormalities including elevated waist circumference, triglycerides, blood pressure, fasting glucose, and reduced HDL cholesterol) and subclinical cardiovascular outcomes (e.g., decreased brachial artery response, increased carotid artery wall thickness, decreased heart rate variability) that are detectable before they manifest as disease such as diabetes and myocardial infarction.

To date, over 400 police officers have participated in the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress (BCOPS) study. The clinical examination includes a series of questionnaires, which measure demographic, lifestyle, and psychological factors (e.g., depression, post-traumatic stress), DEXA measurements to record bone density and body composition, ultrasounds of the brachial and carotid arteries, 18 salivary cortisol samples throughout the day and in response to a series of challenges, and blood samples. Upon completion of the clinical exam, officers are given an actigraph, a small electronic device that resembles a wrist watch, to wear over the next 15 days that measures the quantity and quality of sleep throughout their typical police shift cycle.

Another feature of our research has been the success of two previous cross-sectional pilot studies involving a smaller number of Buffalo police officers. Findings include the following:

Female officers had higher mean Impact of Events (a measure of post-traumatic stress symptoms) and CES-D (a measure of depressive symptoms) scores than male officers.

Officers with higher post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms had a nearly two-fold reduction in brachial artery flow-mediated dilation, indicating greater impairment of endothelial function (physiologic dysfunction of the normal biochemical processes carried out by the cells which line the inner surface of blood vessels) than officers with fewer PTSD symptoms.

Officers with moderate or severe PTSD symptoms had higher mean awakening cortisol values compared with those who had less severe PTSD symptoms.

Officers with severe PTSD had a three-fold higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome than those reporting the fewest PTSD symptoms. This association was attenuated slightly by covariate adjustment for age and education.

Additional findings include associations of negative life events with depressive symptoms (Hartley et al.), night shift work with short sleep duration and snoring (Charles et al.), and a series of statistical applications for optimizing the measurement and analysis of study exposures or outcomes (Andrew et al., Fekedulegn et al., Slaven et al.).

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