3635 Vista Avenue,
St. Louis,
63110
Missouri,
United States
1. Employer policy provides for insufficient PPE. Policy requires droplet precautions only (surgical mask, no eye protection) for staff who care for (within 6 feet for extended periods) COVID-19 positive or suspected patients unless designated as aerosol or high droplet. On Sept 8-10, employees requesting N95 respirators for COVID-19 contact were denied respirator level PPE. 2. Employees have been prohibited from wearing their own NIOSH-certified, disposable N95 filter facepiece respirators or better. 3. Employer policy calls for unsafe reuse (with or without decontamination) of PPE. Employer has changed the policy multiple times calling for extended reuse of surgical masks and N95s, but did not effectively communicate that to employees. Many employees are still reusing single use masks, gowns and respirators for multiple shifts per previous instructions from the Employer. 4. Employer does not provide designated areas for donning and doffing PPE, handwashing, or for proper disposal of contaminated PPE. 5. COVID patients are placed on units with other (sometimes immunocompromised) patients. Staff are expected to travel between COVID and non-COVID rooms with or without extended use/reused PPE. COVID patients are not always placed in negative air pressure rooms. On 9/10, a COVID positive patient was placed in a normal patient care room with a broken door that was unable to be closed for 36 hours. Staff that entered or passed the room were not provided with respirators. 6. Employer policy does not provide for isolation or testing of employees with confirmed workplace exposures unless the employee develops symptoms, resulting in increased risk of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic exposure at work. 7. Employer notification of workplace exposures is not timely. In several instances between June and August, employees were not notified of an exposure until a full week after the Employer was aware of the exposure, resulting in increased risk of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic exposure at work and outside of work. 8. Staff are not provided with sufficient break time to allow for social distancing in break rooms, increasing transmission risk without masks. 9. At least 10 staff members between June and August tested positive as part of clusters in two departments, indicating likely transmission among coworkers due to the Employers instructions. 10. Aerosol generating procedure was performed in the ED on a COVID positive patient with the door open, without proper staff PPE, on 6/30/20. Staff exposed during that incident were not instructed to quarantine; staff were expected to continue working and were not tested until they developed symptoms, exposing other staff. Other staff subsequently tested positive.
Alleged Hazards: 15, Employees Exposed: 15
Source: Osha.gov | Receipt Date: 2020-09-11
