Left to right: Richard Lipsitz, business agent with Local 264; William Stachowski, New York State Senator, Germain Harnden, WNYCOSH Co-Director; Ron Lucas, President of Local 264; Dawn Hanavan, WNYCOSH Administrator; Melissa Rowland, WNYCOSH SPH Trainer; Andy Ray, Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy; Roger Cook, WNYCOSH Executive Director; Donna Chapman, WNYCOSH Program Coordinator; Kristen Rinker, WNYCOSH Special Projects Coordinator.

On May 21, 2010, Local 264 President Ron Lucas and Business Agent Richard Lipsitz joined Western New York health care unions, hospital administrators, elected officials and the Dean of Public Health to announce the opening of New York State’s first Safe Patient Handling Lab and Training Center.

OSHA reports that health care workers as a whole have more serious back and other musculoskeletal injuries than any other occupation, including construction and truck driving. The fact is that each day a nurse lifts the combined patient weight of 1.8 tons and certified nursing assistants lift even more. Over time, sprains, strains and ultimately ruptured and degenerative discs are the result. According to David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, 12-18 percent of nurses annually leave the health care profession due to career-ending back injuries.

Local 264 represents the staff at the Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health, the organization which collaborated with the University of Buffalo to form the UB-WNYCOSH Safe Patient Handling Lab and Training Center on the university’s medical campus.

“As President of Teamsters 264, I’m very proud of my members at WNYCOSH for all the hard work they did on this project,” said Lucas, who is a member of the WNYCOSH board. “They should be commended for not only the work they did on this project, but for all the projects they work on to help make workplaces safe for working men and women.”

“Most of these patient-handling injuries can be prevented by eliminating patient and resident manual handling tasks,” said Teamster member Melissa Rowland, RN, WNYCOSH’s Safe Patient Handling trainer. “WNYCOSH offered these Safe Patient Handling programs in three nursing home facilities and within a year, injuries dropped by 62 percent and lost-work days by 69 percent.”

Modern mechanical-assist lifting equipment and repositioning devices allow caregivers to avoid physically using their bodies to handle their patients. Most health care school programs don’t provide training for nurses and for physical and occupational therapists on safe patient-handling equipment and most health care facilities do not have adequate equipment and training programs for direct caregivers, impeding widespread implementation of Safe Patient Handling programs.

The new UB-WNYCOSH center provides the opportunity to introduce health care students, union members and hospital and nursing home administrators to Safe Patient Handling programs. The lab is equipped with the latest up-to-date beds, mechanical assists and other devices that will allow participants to learn hands-on how to most effectively use the equipment. 

Richard Lipsitz, Local 264 business agent and Legislative-Political Action Co-Chair of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, noted that the federation represents 100,000 members and “tens of thousands of health care workers.” 

“When this issue [to support the Center] came up, it was a no-brainer for us,” Lipsitz said. “This is a terrific room and it’s going to be a wonderful program for the students who take up professions in health care.” 

The Area Labor Federation advocated for the project and Lipsitz thanked members of the New York State Senate for providing financial assistance to purchase equipment and staffing for the Center.