Board of Occupational Safety and Health Adopts OSHA's Personal Protective Equipment Standard to Protect Public Sector Health Care Workers Bookmark and Share

November 15, 2021

For Immediate Release: November 15, 2021

Board of Occupational Safety and Health Adopts OSHA's Personal Protective Equipment Standard to Protect Public Sector Health Care Workers

AUGUSTA - Today, Maines Board of Occupational Safety and Health (BOSH) adopted the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administrations (OSHA) Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) relating to the provision of personal protective equipment. While already in effect for private health care employers, this now extends the same protections available to health care workers in the private sector to those working in publicly operated settings such as state-run psychiatric facilities and city or municipal emergency responders. This is a separate ETS from the recently published COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing ETS - https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets2 .

Under longstanding State law and a 2015 agreement with the Federal government, known as a "state plan - https://www.osha.gov/stateplans/me ," Maine is required to adopt and enforce for public employers all of OSHAs occupational safety and health standards.

OSHA published its Emergency Temporary Standard - https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/national/06102021 on June 21, 2021 for private employers. The standard established new requirements for settings where employees provide healthcare or health care support services, including skilled nursing homes and home healthcare, with some exemptions for healthcare providers who screen out patients who may have COVID-19. The ETS is aimed at protecting workers facing the highest COVID-19 hazards-those working in healthcare settings where suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients are treated. This includes employees in hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities; emergency responders; home healthcare workers; and employees in ambulatory care facilities where suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients are treated.

Key pieces of the federal standard include employer requirements on:

  • Developing and implementing a COVID-19 plan
  • Patient screening and management
  • Developing and implementing policies and procedures to adhere to Standard and Transmission-Based Precautions in accordance with the CDC
  • Providing and ensuring employees wear personal protective equipment (PPE)
  • Physical distancing of at least 6 feet when indoors
  • Physical barriers
  • Cleaning and disinfection
  • Ventilation
  • Health screening and medical management
  • Providing reasonable time and paid leave for vaccinations and vaccine side effects
  • Training
  • Recordkeeping
  • Reporting work-related COVID-19 fatalities and hospitalizations to OSHA

The requirements must be implemented at no cost to employees.

Information on OSHAs standard, including FAQs and a webinar, can be found here: https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets

The Board will next meet on December 2, 2021. During this meeting, BOSH will adopt for the public sector OSHAs Emergency Temporary Standard on requiring all private employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative COVID-19 test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work.

More information on BOSH and their next meeting can be found here: https://www.maine.gov/labor/workplace_safety/publicsector.shtml