Healthcare Workers and Workplace Injuries

Healthcare is a strenuous field.  Employees are often required to work long hours stretching late into the night, performing a combination of mentally-challenging, emotionally-draining, and physically-exhausting activities.  Patients can be erratic and occasionally violent.  Even at the best of times, moving patients from bed to gurney or running down the halls in an emergency can lead to a workplace injury.  Healthcare workers, like employees in any other industry, are entitled to compensation when they are hurt on the job.  Read on for a discussion of healthcare workplace injuries that occur in hospitals, emergency rooms, nursing homes, and other medical institutions, and reach out to a dedicated Southern California workers’ compensation lawyer if you have been hurt on the job and need help with a workers’ compensation claim.   

Healthcare is a dangerous profession

Healthcare workers are injured all the time.  Every year, an average of more than 650,000 healthcare workers are injured while on the job.  This year, 385,000 workers will be inadvertently stuck by needles, exposing them to dangerous pathogens.  Healthcare workers are hurt all the time, and yet many view the more common injuries as simply part of the job.  If you are hurt while working as a healthcare professional, it is vital that you report the injury through the appropriate channels and take care of yourself.  If you let your injuries fester and go untreated, you may find yourself incapacitated down the line and without legal recourse to cover your bills and expenses.  At that point, you are no help to your patients or anyone else.  Report your workplace injuries, file a claim, and get sound legal help in doing so.

Common healthcare workplace injuries and accidents

Accidents are common in hospitals, nursing homes, emergency rooms, and other medical centers.  Some of the more common injuries that healthcare workers typically endure include:

• Bumps, bruises, and breaks.  Things happen fast in hospitals, especially when emergency care is involved.  People are rushing down hallways and pushing past other staff.  Patients or their loved ones may become erratic due to stress, or they may suffer from mental impairment; this often leads to violence against hospital staff.  Workplace violence is extremely common in medical institutions, far more than most other professions.
• Strain from lifting patients.  Nurses, orderlies, physical therapists and others regularly have to help patients move from place to place.  This can lead to neck injuries, back injuries, foot injuries, and other forms of muscle strains and tears.
• Being stuck with a needle or otherwise being exposed to pathogens.  Doctors, nurses, orderlies and others are constantly dealing with sick patients who may move erratically.  Patients can jockey someone’s arm, sending a needle right into another staff member.  The needle may have just been used to administer treatment to a patient with HIV or some other contagious disease.  Moreover, healthcare workers are regularly exposed to all sorts of pathogens.  Regardless of how careful a healthcare worker is, they may still accidentally contract some sort of illness from a patient at one time or another.

California employers must carry workers’ compensation insurance to protect their employees in the event of these or other workplace injuries.  If you develop a workplace injury or illness, your employer and their insurance should be held to cover your medical bills, lost wages, and other costs associated with getting you back on your feet and back on the job. 

CALL THE WORKERS’ COMPENSATION ATTORNEYS AT INVICTUS LAW IF YOU ARE INJURED IN THE WORKPLACE

If you have a claim for workers’ compensation and want to make sure you get the maximum available coverage, call Invictus Law today at 949-287-5711, and speak with an experienced California workers’ compensation attorney to evaluate your claims.