OSHA official: Keep an eye on laundry worker safety

Needlesticks, PPE lapses, and other pitfalls can plague hospital laundries

If laundry safety hasn’t caught your attention recently, it might soon. That’s because OSHA seems to be taking more notice of laundry facilities in stand-alone and in-hospital operations.

A major point behind laundry safety is preventing bloodborne pathogens exposures. In 2007, federal epidemiologists were investigating four cases of HIV infection that may have resulted from laundry or housekeeping-related needlestick injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Laundry-related HIV exposures can be complicated to prevent because they require safety training and compliance from several groups (e.g., employees who wear hospital garb, housekeepers who handle linens, and laundry workers), says Dionne Williams, senior industrial hygienist at OSHA.