The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will be introducing the new heat safety rules after its draft rule on handling the risks of work environment heat got the support of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH). ACCSH recommends OSHA for safety and health requirements and policy concerns. On April 24, 2024, after seeing the draft rule, ACCSH gave OSHA the go signal to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
Presently, the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act calls for employers to handle threats in the workplace. Companies must safeguard employees from the risks of heat exposure and should have an appropriate safety and health program set up. Employers must give enough cool drinking water, breaks, and a cool area for rest, and any new workers or employers who are going to a high-heat work environment must be given time to adjust to the heat. Supervisors and employees must be taught to identify the indicators of heat-related health issues.
OSHA is performing outreach to remind companies of their obligation to keep employees safe from heat exposure and is utilizing its enforcement assets to keep businesses responsible when they are not able to offer a secure workspace. This is now a main concern for OSHA because of high temperatures in the U.S. during the summer months, which has resulted in the death of many employees and experiencing health problems associated with deadly heat exposure.
When OSHA introduced its National Emphasis Program called Outdoor and Indoor Heat-Related Hazards in 2022, over 5,000 inspections were carried out on places of work with high exposures to heat-related threats. With the upcoming summer, OSHA is putting first inspections in agricultural sectors that use temporary, non-immigrant H-2A employees for seasonal jobs, since these employees have unique vulnerabilities like less command of living and working situations, insufficient acclimatization, and frequent language limitations.
Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker explained that employees in danger of heat illness must be protected by a new rule. OSHA is working diligently to create a new regulation that protects employees from the dangers of heat. In the process of setting up these protections, OSHA is employing all of its resources to make companies responsible if they don’t protect employees from identified risks like heat, which include the authority to stop companies from exposing employees to circumstances that present an impending danger.
Circles of Care Cited for Failing to Protect Employees
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) called out Circles of Care for not protecting its workers from patient attacks. This is the third time in 5 years that OSHA investigated Circles of Care after employees were severely hurt or killed because of violent patient attacks.
Multiple psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities operator, Circles of Care in Florida offers alcohol, drug abuse, mental health, and related services. OSHA investigated Circles of Care two times in 2020. The first time was after a former patient shot a counselor and the second time was after an alleged attack at its Melbourne Harbor Pines facility.
The most recent OSHA investigation started on November 7, 2023 because a patient attacked an employee who was hospitalized two days later. A patient used a mental hole punch on a mental health technician when attacked at a nurse’s workstation at the Sheridan West Unit in Melbourne. The technician suffered injuries to the neck, face, and arm. Another worker sustained a hand laceration for trying to stop the patient.
OSHA concluded that Circles of Care did not implement adequate controls to stop the increase of acts of violence toward its employees and reported the company for a recurring violation of not providing a workplace that is free of safety and health risks. OSHA also released a citation for an other-than-serious violation, as Circles of Care didn’t report the worker’s job-related hospitalization in 24 hours, as is demanded by legislation.
Circles of Care’s unwillingness to safeguard its workers from the identified threat of patient attack is outrageous. These assaults frequently happen instantly and quickly, resulting in serious and, deadly harm to employees and causing their fellow workers trauma, as mentioned by OSHA Area Office Director Erin Sanchez. Workplace violence is still a real danger that healthcare companies and workers cannot ignore. Industry companies such as Circles of Care need to get ready and give HIPAA training to workers appropriately and apply emergency response actions to fight these occurrences and make sure their workers can finish their shifts safely.
Circles of Care is given 15 days from the citation date to pay the $101,397 penalty, ask for an informal meeting with OSHA, or argue the decision before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
