Healthcare Delivery Perspectives
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Healthcare workers are always at the highest risk of contracting infectious diseases owing to the exposure that they have with patients. As, such, healthcare organization have the responsibility of putting in place measures of protecting their employees against risks posed by new patients seeking diagnosis (Lyu et al., 2017). Occupational safety is one of the most discussed topics in healthcare today when the world is battling the infectious COVID-19. In the presented case study where a healthcare worker contracted Tuberculosis and potentially infected a colleague besides placing others and her patients to the risk of infection, there are measures that could have been undertaken to reduce the chances of an occurrence in future.
Employers such as the one under consideration could have taken actions at the point when Sara started exhibiting symptoms to prevent the disease from moving from the inactive stage to the active stage. The organizations ought to have stopped her from attending to work as well as mingling with her colleagues as well as patients. Other actions to prevent the advancement of the disease include immunization of the workforce against TB thus reducing their susceptibility (Lyu et al., 2017). The organization could have also put in place preventive measures such as setting up places for washing and drying hands as well as mandatory putting on of masks by all the employees. The organization should have advised the employees to observe hygiene while in crowded places in the form of covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing to prevent the infectious droplets from getting to the air (Lyu et al., 2017). Additionally, further measures such as acquisition of personal protective equipment when on duty would have shielded Sara from getting the infection or passing the disease to her colleagues as well as her patients.
According to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) guidelines, the responsibilities of employers in a workplace setting include making sure that employees use safe equipment that shield them from occupational hazards such as infectious diseases (Mullen, Kelloway & Teed, 2017). The organization had the responsibility of putting in place safe operating procedures that are easily understand and applied. Employers have a role of providing safety training to their workforce to enable them protect themselves, their colleagues and patients from contracting diseases. Employers are also required to provide regular medical examination and vaccination to their workforce in the event that there are at potential risks of getting infected in the course of their work (Mullen, Kelloway & Teed, 2017). Employers have the responsibility of ensuring that their employees are not discriminated upon by the management and their colleagues as prescribed under OSH guidelines.
The responsibilities of employees in ensuring their safety in the course of their work lies in their own volition to keep themselves safe while using work tools and equipment. Employees are required to follow the safety guidelines put in place by their employers to guarantee their safety and ask for assistance in the event that they do not understand the guidelines (Mullen, Kelloway & Teed, 2017). Employees are required to take care of the protective equipment that they are given by their employers and use them properly according to the instructions given to them by specialists. Additionally, employees have the mandate of reporting any cases or hazards that may threaten their health and safety while in the workplace. To guarantee their safety, employees are required to cooperate with their employers when faced with scenarios that are beyond their abilities so as to ensure that measures are put in place to protect them (Mullen, Kelloway & Teed, 2017). Employees have the responsibility of reporting to the management in the event that they exhibit symptoms related to infectious diseases to ensure that they protect their colleagues from contracting the disease as well as enable the management to put in place preventive measures.
There exists a number of leadership qualities that the management of health facilities ought to invoke to prevent the exposure of employees to communicable diseases. Putting in place an open door policy when dealing with their employees to make them be free to report their symptoms ensures that the management is able to put in place preventive measures to avoid the spread of the disease. Managers need to have qualities such as being team players to be able to interact with their subordinates and understand their problems so that they be in a position to help them (Bibby, 2017). In the event of an outbreak of communicable diseases, managers who are team players are in a better position to identify the start point of the disease to unravel the appr