Healthcare Professionals are facing a complex variety of potential health and safety hazards while them doing their job in a hospital every day. The hazards are included musculoskeletal diseases, back injuries, latex allergies, violence, needlestick injuries and stress. Some of the hazards are unavoidable and healthcare professionals have to take precaution to prevent, reduce or eliminate these occupational hazards. According to a statistics of occupational accident prepared by the Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health for 2011, agriculture and manufacturing were the 1st and 2nd ranking while public service was the 3rd highest ranking. The rate of occupational injuries and illness of healthcare professionals have been increasing …show more content…
Employers have to ensure that the personal protective equipment chosen is:
• used appropriately for the work task
• well maintained, function well and clean.
The personal protective equipment should be fit for the workers use. If the personal protective equipment does not fit comfortably, it can make the workers exposed to dangerous hazards at work.
Healthcare professionals are required to carry out invasive procedure when dealing with a high opportunity and extremely crowed working environment. It is because the products of hospitals are human lives and well-being of patient which is not same as other industries (Institute of Medicine, 2008). Therefore, the personal protective equipment plays an important role to protects healthcare professionals effectively by adhering to the safe use of the equipment.
A survey of IPC competencies found that educations of various healthcare professionals are required. (Carrico RM, 2008). However, in a checklist for healthcare professionals to sees and certify their clinical procedural skills, investigators found that one third of the checklist examined did not express clearly to the assessment of “Infection Control” competencies (Mc Kinley, RK