Occupational Hazards in Anaesthesiology: Causes, Controls and Recommendations

Running head: OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
Name of the University
Author Note

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
Introduction
Human resource practitioners present in a hospital have to witness or deal with
several hazards that can potentially affect the health of the health care workers. The hazards
includes chemical and the biochemical hazards, hazardous drugs, ionising and the non-
ionising radiations, stresses, shift work and violence (Molina Aragonés et al., 2015). One of
the health hazards that I have witnessed during my career is the chronic exposure to the
nitrous oxide of the staffs working in the department of anaesthesiology. While working as
the human resource practitioner in a clinical setting, I was reported that the health care
workers are often becoming sick, having nausea and dizziness. One of the most serious case
that I have witnessed is when one day one of the healthcare workers in the anaesthetic unit
started vomiting and after diagnosis, it was found that the person was suffering from
tachycardia.
Hazards
The type of the hazard that has occurred in this case is nitrous oxide and several
halogenated anaesthetics like the halothane, isoflurane and enflurane that can cause various
harmful effects by the absorption through the alveolar capillary membrane (Allweiler &
Kogan, 2013). Once the lipid soluble agents are being metabolised in the body, the harmful
metabolites can lead to renal, hepatic and pulmonary cytotoxicity, decreasing the
psychomotor efficiency on the chronic exposure (Tankó et al., 2014). Normally, a face mask
is uses before the administration of the anaesthesia. It was reported that some of the health
care workers were not abiding by the work practice guidelines. Little focus was given on the

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
cleaning of the liquid anaesthetic agent. It was also reported that the gloves and the chemical
protective clothing (CPC) used by the health care workers, were of quality below the
recommended guidelines. If the CPC and the gloves are not tested under he expected
conditions, then they might fail to give adequate protection to the health care workers.
Identification of the controls
Controlling of the occupational exposures can be done by the application of a number
of control including the engineering of the workplace, the administrative controls, the use of
the personal protective equipment and proper monitoring (Casale et al., 2015). After the
incident, I have scrutinised the anaesthetic room and found that the scavenging system of the
anaesthesia equipment was alright. In fact the active and the passive scavenging system of the
room was also good. All these indicated that gaps are left in the personal practices other than
the engineering control. With subsequent interrogation, I came to know that improper
techniques practiced by the health care workers are causing an increased waste gas levels in
the anaesthesia room. Furthermore, the use of the improperly fitted face mask, an
insufficiently treated tracheal tube often cause spillage of the liquid anaesthetic units (Casale
et al., 2015). Again, there might have been some anomalies in the ventilation system of the
room that has led to the increase of the gas levels in the room. Furthermore, it was also noted
that that the administrative control of the hospital was not suitable enough to serve the needs
of the health care workers. There was a lack of routined monitoring and regular repairment of
the equipment. Regular monitoring was not done to measure the airborne levels of the waste
gases in the breathing zone or the immediate working area of those who are heavily expose to
the gases. Again it was also found that most of the health professionals are not aware of the
OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard.