For more information contact:
Joan Meehan-Hurwitz
202-651-7020
jmeehan@ana.org
rn=realnews@ana.org
www.nursingworld.org
Remarks of Beth Piknick, RN
for the
American Nurses Association
November 22, 1999
Good Morning. My name is Beth Piknick and I am a registered nurse and member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. I am here today representing the American Nurses Association and the 2.6 million RNs in this country to voice our strong support for OSHA's Ergonomic Standard. I am also here today because while working as an ICU nurse, I suffered a career-ending back injury that was devastating, both personally and professionally. And this injury was preventable. I am determined to make sure that what happened to me does not continue to happen to other health care workers. This standard is a step toward that goal.
Moving patients from their beds to chairs and vice versa was one of many of lifting maneuvers I performed throughout my career. I would twist, bend, pull, and push. It was part of the job. I never had any back problems. But on February 17, 1992 while leaning over a patient to move him, I severely injured my back. I went to physicians, surgeons, and physical therapists, determined to get back to work, but I remained in pain. During the two years after the injury I had spinal fusion surgery which involved major rehabilitation. I was willing to go through whatever I had to, but my major goal was to get back to the job I loved — taking care of critically ill patients and their families.
But after the surgery and physical therapy, that remains impossible. I am finally pain free, but I have to work to remain pain free. I cannot stand for long periods of time without support. I can only sit in certain chairs. I cannot lift or do any repetitive bending or twisting motions. Before my injury, I was an active person who enjoyed bicycling, competitive racquetball, waterskiing and yearly white water rafting trips with my family, all of which I can no longer do.
Due to the injury, I have been relegated to a light duty job performing TB surveillance activities for Employee Health. This is not why I became a nurse — I became a nurse to care for patients. My identity has been based on being an ICU nurse. The inability to care for patients was devastating and sent me into four and a half years of severe clinical depression. My family has had to cope with both my physical and psychological problems. It was horrendous and seven years later I am just starting to adjust.
One of the worst moments in this whole experience was when I learned that my injury could have been prevented. I, like most nurses, assumed that lifting was just part of the job. At the time of my injury I did not know that there were lifting devices commercially available and that my hospital simply chose not to have them. My hospital is only now starting to implement the use of lifting devices.
Health care workers continue to face an increasingly hazardous work environment. While caring for others, we put our health, and sometimes our lives, at risk. This cannot continue. With this standard, health care facilities will have to develop back-injury prevention programs that will involve frontline health care workers. Engineering controls, like lifting devices, must be the primary means of prevention. Single-person lifts without assistive staff or devices should be eliminated — which means hospitals will have to insure adequate staffing. By protecting workers from injury, health care facilities can also invest in retaining a cadre of experienced, healthy nurses, which is particularly important in this time of increasing nursing shortages.
If this standard had been in place in 1992, I would still be living the active life I love. I would be able to stand and have a conversation with someone without pain. I would still be doing what I love, caring for my patients.
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