Many nurses back-injured from lifting patients are well-able to continue nursing tasks other than heavy lifting but many employers are unwilling to provide on-going light duty to keep back-injured nurses working. Following the limited number of “Early Return to Work” light duty days, if unable to resume heavy lifting, work-disabled nurses are generally not welcomed back. Across the country, injured nurses are told, “There isn’t. We don’t. You can’t. There is no [permanent] light duty. We don’t create jobs. You can’t return unless you resume full physical performance, including lifting requirements.”

Following disabling, patient-handling, back injuries – the majority of which could be prevented by the use of safe, gentle, mechanical lift equipment and friction-reducing devices – injured nurses are often ousted. With years of experience, nursing knowledge and skills intact, many injured nurses are still quite capable of providing valuable nursing services. Sadly, however, after suffering largely preventable injuries, nurses discarded as broken equipment discover that their jobs, and apparently their value as nurses, depend on the strength of their backs.

Exploitation of nurses and wastage of financial resources continue in two ways: 1. Disabling back injuries to nurses are permitted to occur by requiring hazardous lifting without provision of safe lift equipment. 2. When back-injured, rather than utilize injured nurses in ways that will not further harm them, employers frequently will not permit them to return. Insurance companies are then obliged to make time loss payments to injured nurses who want to work, who demonstrate that they can work during “Early Return to Work,” but, at the end of allotted light duty days, if unable to resume heavy lifting, may be sitting home while their employers say, “There is no [permanent] light duty and we don’t create jobs.” Injured nurses may then be processed through workers’ compensation “retraining,” usually away from nursing into some lower paying work, wasting both valuable nurses and financial resources.

Many injured nurses could be kept in the work force -– and substantial savings realized –- if insurance companies provided incentives to employers to retain injured nurses, including, when necessary, with permanent light duty. Some insurance companies are successfully assisting healthcare facilities to reduce nurses’ back injuries with safe patient handling programs. A second area of potential great savings, apparently yet to be explored by insurance companies, is reduction of time loss payments and vocational rehabilitation expenses by keeping injured nurses who are still able to work working for their employer at injury.

Anne Hudson, RN

Who Defines Control?
David Brown says that worker control over or within the workplace means “finishing”(Readers Respond: What Will They Mute Next? And a Workable Definition of Control For the Workplace, Ergonomics Today, July 2, 2003).

I like the idea; it is intriguing. In one study I conducted I found that military dental technicians who could not control the length of patient appointments (and thus would work throughout breaks and lunches to finish work on difficult cleanings) were highly stressed. However, they did finish… they simply worked harder and longer.

The idea that it is only the lower people on the totem pole that can be interrupted at will isn’t realistic in my world. With increased communications via email and phone, customers, co-workers, colleagues and supervisors all expect quick and immediate responses, forcing many workers to leave on their email and let it interrupt their work throughout their day or check it five or more times a day… and I have very few “high level” friends and colleagues who ever feel “finished” at the end of the day.

Most important, I think we should be careful putting our own interpretation on someone else’s response to a survey question. This sounds like a nice masters thesis to me. Just what do workers mean when they answer the question about having little/no control over their work and/or work life?

Valerie J. Berg Rice, Ph.D., CPE, OTR/L
Certified Professional Ergonomist/Human Factors Engineer
ARL-HRED AMEDD Field Office (AMSRL-HR-MM)

Reading, Writing and Ergonomics
Thoughts on ergonomics and education (Ergonomics Enters the Classroom, Ergonomics Today, August 20, 2003):

Thanks for the article on the absence of ergonomic education in our schools. As a mother and ergonomics specialist, I too am concerned and do all I can to remedy the situation wherever possible.

I was thrilled when my youngest took keyboarding in junior high. For the first time ever, his teacher graded students not just on accuracy and speed, but on back, shoulder and wrist posture as well. Poor posture dropped a grade just as much as slow or inaccurate typing – now that’s the way to really develop good habits right from the start!

Cathy W. Webb
Avaya Environment & Safety Support Team

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