NEWS ADVISORY
Health care workers
launch new phase of campaign for safer needles
TORONTO – The Ontario Nurses’
Association (ONA), the Service Employees International Union
(SEIU), and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union
(OPSEU) will announce a new initiative in their campaign to
press the Ontario government into making safety-engineered
medical sharps mandatory in all workplaces where workers are
exposed to blood-borne pathogens.
A law making the use of
safety needles mandatory would prevent 33,000 injuries a
year in Ontario and save tens of millions of dollars, say
three unions who collectively represent about 130,000 health
care workers in Ontario. They say unsafe sharp medical
devices put health care workers and the public at
unnecessary risk of injury, which could transmit diseases
such as hepatitis and HIV.
Date: November 15,
2005
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Place: Queen’s Park
Media Studio, Ontario Legislative Building
Who: Linda Haslam-Stroud,
RN, President, ONA Cathy Carroll, Secretary-Treasurer,
SEIU Local1.on Patty Rout, Chair, OPSEU Health Care
Divisional Council Shelley Martel, Health Care Critic,
Ontario NDP
-30-
For information please
contact:
David Cox, OPSEU,
416-788-9197 (cell)
Carl Mavromichalis, SEIU, 416-951-4905 (cell)
Sheree Bond, ONA 416-964-8833 ext 2430
