“OSHA blasted for inaction on COVID-19 pleas,” by Alicia Lasek, McKnight’s LTC News

Quote:

“Complaint logs reveal thousands of ‘desperate pleas’ to a workplace safety agency for protective gear by staff at nursing homes, hospitals and medical offices. Unfulfilled requests may have contributed to worker deaths, according to a new report. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has logged more than 4,1000 COVID-related complaints since March. At least 35 healthcare workers died after the agency received safety complaints about their workplaces. But the agency had ‘quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine,’ according to Kaiser Health News investigators. The apparent lack of oversight is a ‘travesty,’ former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz told the news outlet.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

See what government financing and regulation of long-term care has wrought. Yet too many analysts and advocates want to “solve’ such problems with more of the same.