Ho hum. Nursing Home Work Is Dangerous. What Else Is New?

Every year it's the same. OSHA releases its list of most dangerous workplaces, and every year nursing homes make the most frequent appearance on the list.

A nursing home employee in New York is more likely to get hurt on the job than a firefighter, a cop or a construction worker, federal statistics show.

A whopping 187 nursing homes across the state made the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration list of employers with excessive injury rates in 2002, making it the top industry in which workers are most likely to get hurt.

In fact, there are traditionally so many nursing homes on OSHA's targeted inspection list, that nursing homes are the only industry that doesn't have all of its targets inspected. There are simply too many.

And that's why OSHA used to have a Nursing Home Initiative that targeted this hazardous industry for special attention. The nursing home initiative lasted all of one year before OSHA cancelled it.

Problem solved? Mission accomplished?

Doesn't look like it from here.

(And don't even mention that stinkin' no-science, job-killing, pinko ergonomics standard. Just get over it already.)