Question
What does the standard stay about personal protection equipment (PPE)?
Answer
The standard says provision. When there is occupational exposure, the employer shall provide PPE. I am reading directly from this at no cost to the employee appropriate personal protective equipment such as, but not limited to, gloves, gowns, laboratory coats, face shields, masks, eye protection, mouthpieces, resuscitation bags, pocket masks, or other ventilation devices. There is a lot of stuff included there. PPE will only be considered appropriate only if it does not permit blood or other potentially infectious materials to pass through or reach your work clothes, your straight clothes, your undergarments, skin, eyes, mouth, or other mucus membranes under normal conditions of use for the duration of time that you are wearing the PPE. Sometimes, you see this fancy cute stuff that people might be using. It is not PPE unless it genuinely protects you, the wearer underneath, from something saturating through it or coming through it, getting on your skin or to your undergarments or such.
The employer shall ensure that the employee uses appropriate PPE unless the employer shows that the employee briefly declined to use PPE when it was the employee's professional judgment under rare extraordinary circumstances. In this specific instance, its use would have prevented the delivery of healthcare or public safety services or would have posed an increased hazard to the safety of the worker or the coworker, meaning the employer has to make sure you wear the stuff that you use this stuff unless under some rare circumstance there is absolutely no way you can wear it and here is why. If you make that judgment, maybe during an emergency situation, a code, or something like that, the circumstances need to be investigated. They need to be documented. The reason is to go back to what the employer must do. They have to consistently look at the workplace engineering controls. Do they need to determine if there is something that should be instituted to prevent this from occurring in the future?
Also, with PPE accessibility, there are all sorts of rules related to this. The employers shall ensure that the appropriate PPE in the appropriate size is readily accessible at the workplace or is issued to the employee. It is either there for you to use on a day-to-day basis, or it is yours to keep. That could be hypoallergenic gloves, glove liners, powderless gloves, or things your size. How often have you seen you go in there are only large gloves, but you have small petite hands that just do not fit similar alternatives? You have to have something accessible for you. Allergies are big ones for people, such as latex allergies. Two other things are laundering and disposal. They need to clean, launder dispose of PPE. It is never to the cost of the employee. The employer needs to be responsible for that. Finally, repair and replacement. The employer shall repair or replace PPE as needed to maintain its effectiveness at no cost to the employee. If you have something your own, does it need to be repaired or replaced? That is up to the employer to do that. A few things about PPE. If a garment is penetrated by blood or other potentially infectious material, it must be taken off immediately or as soon as possible. For example, it may not always be feasible if you are in a code. It should be removed before leaving the work area. That could be your specific work area, or that could be the workplace. It is both. When PPE is removed, you are going to put it in the appropriate area, the appropriate container, depending on your employer, where they either store it, wash it, decontaminate it, dispose of it, replace it make sure you know where that is.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Bloodborne Pathogens Standards: What You Need to Know, presented by Kathleen Weissberg, OTD, OTR/L, CMDCP, CDP, CFPS.
