Healthcare workers are worse affected by disease and injuries related to their jobs than first thought, medical experts said yesterday.

Among the most common health threats to nurses were needle-stick injuries, problems linked to sleep deprivation (including heart disease and muscular and joint disorders) and mental conditions.

Health workers have long been concerned about needle-stick injuries (which can lead to the contraction of infectious diseases such as HIV), but there has never been a mechanism to report or log the statistics of this type of accident, said Dr Adul Bandhukul of Noppara-trachathani Hospital.

Adul, who is head of the hospital's Occupational and Environmental Medicine Centre, was speaking at the Department of Medical Services' annual academic conference in Bangkok yesterday.

Because official statistics for needle-stick injury did not exist in Thailand, Nopparatrachathani Hospital conducted a study of its own. It found the number of reported needle-stick cases had risen dramatically in recent years.

"Four years ago there was only one case of needle-stick injury ever reported at the hospital, but after an education programme to raise awareness of reporting, the number had risen to 20 cases last year," Adul said.

"It's not a new problem but an old one that has never been resolved," he said. Without sufficient evidence, including official figures, this problem - which seems small but has an enormous effect on the well-being and lives of healthcare workers - will be left like it has been for many years," he said.

The most common infections caused by needle-stick injury are HIV and the hepatitis B and C viruses, Adul said.

Aside from these diseases, mental conditions like chronic depression were found to be common among healthcare workers who had suffered a needle-stick accident, he said.

US studies have found that the more work experience a nurse has, the higher the risk of needle-stick injury. Those with five years' experience had about a 5 per cent chance of being injured. After 45 years of work, the risk increased to 100 per cent.

Adul said that per 100 patient beds, there was an average possibility of 30 needle-stick injuries happening.

Up to 75 per cent of cases were found to be preventable if there were safety devices and a culture of awareness.

"Without any agency to deal with these problems directly, healthcare workers are given far from sufficient protection," said Adul.

Sleep deprivation from long hours of shift work was another major cause of illness and health risks (including accidents at work and on the road, and heart diseases), said Dr Charas Choksuwanakij of Nopparatrachathani Hospital.

Sleep, digestive and reproductive problems, as well as increased intolerance to shift work, were also found among medical and healthcare workers, he said.

Arthit Khwankhom

 The Nation