On-the-Job Injuries: What's Our Solution?

[Terse]

A recent NPR segment highlights on-the-job injuries. Apparently we nursing staff (including Nursing Assistants) are injured on the job more often than police, firefighters and construction workers.

Colleagues of mine have been injured on the job but not noticeably more than other professions in which friends and relatives work.

1.) Have we noticed relatively increased numbers of on-the-job injuries compared to other professions?

2.) What do WE as nursing staff (administrators, direct-care nurses and nursing assistants) recommend to protect ourselves from on-the-job injuries: lift teams, lift equipment, maximum work hours, employer health club contributions, in-services or anything else? What are our suggestions to keep ourselves healthy to better care for patients?

[bluegeegoo2, LPN]

Frequent in-services on proper body mechanics. My personal opinion is even though most of us were taught how to properly lift in school, we have either forgotten with time or just got lazy.

(Allow me to add that I fall in the latter category. I pulled the crap out of my back last week improperly moving a resident.)

[ponymom]

Like 99.99999% of the problems in nursing, these issues could be most positively addressed (if not solved altogether) just by something as simple and commonsensical as (true) proper staffing.

[Anna S, RN]

Like 99.99999% of the problems in nursing, these issues could be most positively addressed (if not solved altogether) just by something as simple and commonsensical as (true) proper staffing.

That's it.

We all know how to lift properly, but when something has to be done and there's absolutely no one to help, you end up doing something by yourself, and get injured. I've had multiple back injuries in nursing and am shocked that I'm still holding up.