Health care providers and professional hazards

With the advancement in health care technologies, the quality and the quantity of the health services have improved a lot. At the same time the health care providers such as doctors, nurses, technicians etc. are more and more exposed to the professional risks due to working environment of the hospital. The common hazards/risks which may occur in a hospital are Hospital acquired infection, Radiation, fire, etc.

Health care providers are most exposed to the professional risk such as hospital acquired infection (eg. Hepatitis B, HIV infection) and radiation due to close approximacy with the patients or by product of the human body. Though the universal precaution, sterilization/disinfection, waste management are the sound practices adopted to prevent infections, still the chances of developing these infections are not zero. It is very difficult to prove the attributability if any employee is found positive with these infections, unless the accident was reported. There are chances that the employee would have developed the infection from other source but not from the hospital, which he/she may deny. This becomes the responsibility of the hospital to protect the employees from these hazards by providing suitable working environment/condition but at the same time the employees are equally responsible to protect themselves from the hazard by adopting various measures of prevention.