Wow...needles?

Today I had a severe asthma attack and had to go to the ER, where I was given IV steroids.

When the nurse put the IV in, I was surprised to see it wasn't needleless- it was the kind that had to be accessed with a needled syringe. Then there were no prefilled saline flushes. She had to draw up flushes out of a bottle of saline. Then she pushed the drug and there was no shield to cover the needle on the syringe with.

Is this common? I haven't seen anything like this in...uhm...not since I've been working. I thought some of these things would be OSHA violations.