Exposure to harmful substances is a major risk for nurses

Working as a nurse isn’t easy. Nurses often have to oversee the implementation of a patient’s treatment plan. They interact with people experiencing pain or withdrawal from drugs.

Nurses can get hurt because they overexert themselves trying to support patients or because patients become violent with them. They can get hurt due to accidental contact with a variety of different potentially dangerous objects used to treat or diagnose medical conditions.

Nurses can also end up sickened due to exposure to hazardous materials or unsafe environments. In recent years, exposure-related lost-time incidents have increased noticeably among nurses.

Statistics show the risks of medical work

Tracking lost-time incidents and workers’ compensation claims can help safety experts better guide legal standards and establish best practices for different industries. In the healthcare sector, protecting professionals from exposure on the job is often a key component of providing a safe working environment.

Workers exposed to pathogens, bodily fluids and even radioactive materials may acquire illnesses that require time away from work and medical treatment. The number of such incidents increased significantly in recent years.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, nurses saw a massive uptick in nonfatal incidents that caused at least one day of lost work in 2020. A massive increase in the number of incidents involving exposure to harmful substances or environments is largely responsible for the surge in lost-time incidents.

There were 55,570 reports of workers missing work due to exposure, which was substantially higher than the 660 cases reported in 2019. Illinois was one of the states that saw a more than 500% increase in lost-time incidents involving registered nurses.

Obviously, in 2020, many of those cases involved pathogen exposure in particular. As infection rates among the general population have declined, rates of exposure-related illness have gone down as well.

However, as long as nurses have to physically interact with patients and collect samples for testing, they have a degree of risk for pathogen exposure.

Nurses who have to take time away from work to recover from an illness or quarantine after exposure may lose out on income until they recover. They may face major medical expenses in some cases.

Thankfully, workers’ compensation can help protect nurses and other professionals exposed to dangerous substances on the job. Filing a workers’ compensation claim can help protect those dealing with lost-time incidents related to the unique hazards of their particular professions.