Hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities are places where the public goes to improve their health and seek treatment for various ailments. Despite this fact, these medical facilities are ironically the site of hundreds of thousands of injuries each year, as health care workers commonly sustain workplace injuries at rates that are far higher than those associated with other industries.

A report recently published by Public Citizen has found that OSHA seems to have dropped the ball in terms of protecting health care workers from workplace injuries.

This fact was recently highlight in a report entitled Health Care Workers Unprotected, which was compiled and published by Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to championing the rights of citizens in the U.S.

Why So Many Injuries for Health Care Workers? OSHA May Be to Blame…

What may be more disturbing than the fact that health care workers suffer more workplace injuries and illnesses at work than many other workers are Public Citizen’s findings that:

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has very few safety standards in place for regulating health care facilities and ensuring protections for health care workers.
• OSHA conducts very few inspections of health care facilities to ensure that they are safe for workers. In fact, while there are two health care workers for every one construction worker in the U.S., the Public Citizen report found that OSHA conducts only about 1/20 of the inspections for health care facilities as it does for construction sites.

These issues have reportedly led to:

• More than 653,000 workplace injuries and illnesses being sustained by health care workers in the U.S. in 2010 alone.
• More than $7 billion being spent each year just to treat work-related back injuries sustained by health care workers.

As Keith Wrightson, an advocate at Public Citizen, has explained, “OSHA is required by law to ensure safe conditions for every employee in the United States… the record is clear that the government has broken its promise to health care workers.

Colorado Workers’ Compensation Lawyers at the Law Office of Michael P. Dominick

If you have sustained a workplace injury and are considering (or in the process of) filing a workers’ compensation claim, you cannot rely upon your employer or insurance companies to look out for your best interests. In fact, both your employer and insurance companies will be more focused on their own bottom lines instead of your current and future wellbeing. This can make the system adversarial for injured workers and potentially even put them in situations in which their legitimate workers’ compensation claims are undercut or even flat-out denied.

In such cases, it’s essential that injured workers contact the Colorado workers’ compensation lawyers at the Law Office of Michael P. Dominick. Our legal professionals are experienced at going up against corporate lawyers and insurance companies, and we have a proven track record of success when it comes to securing our Clients the maximum possible compensation for their injuries and financial losses.

Contact Us

For a thorough evaluation of your case, along with expert advice on the best manner in which to move forward, call us at (303) 447-2644.