We need the Safe Patient Handling bill (A2180/S1123) to pass the state Assembly and Senate and be signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
As health-care workers, we have been talking about, fighting for, lobbying on and waiting for this common-sense bill to become law for more than a decade.
This bill is extraordinarily beneficial to the patients for whom we care. Without this bill and the equipment, training and monitoring it provides for, patients continue to be pulled, turned and lifted without equipment and are injured in various ways.
The health-care workers that provide patient care also are injured at an unacceptable rate. In some measures, health-care worker injury rates are higher than those of construction workers.
In 2011, the Assembly passed this bill. In 2012, the Senate passed this bill 58-2, but it was not introduced in the Assembly.
Successes of Safe Patient Handling are the Kaleida Health System in Buffalo, the veterans home in Batavia and the Veterans Health Administration across its vast system.
This bill will prevent injuries to patients, help health-care workers stay in jobs for which they are trained and love and save hospitals money through avoidance of workers' compensation costs and patient injury claims.
Let the Assembly, Senate and Gov. Cuomo be on notice that we have had enough. Our patients for whom we advocate have had enough. We will do everything we can to finally have the protections that we need and deserve.
ANN CONVERSO
Political/legislative coordinator, CWA/Healthcare Coordinating Council
Lawtons