A health care facility is a workplace as well as a place for receiving and giving care. Health care facilities around the world employ over 59 million workers who are exposed to a complex variety of health and safety hazards everyday including:

biological hazards, such as TB, Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, SARS; chemical hazards, such as, glutaraldehyde, ethylene oxide; physical hazards, such as noise, radiation, slips trips and falls; ergonomic hazards, such as heavy lifting; psychosocial hazards, such as shiftwork, violence and stress; fire and explosion hazards, such as using oxygen, alcohol sanitizing gels; and electrical hazards, such as frayed electrical cords.

Health-care workers (HCWs) need protection from these workplace hazards just as much as do mining or construction workers. Yet, because their job is to care for the sick and injured, HCWs are often viewed as “immune” to injury or illness. Their patients come first. They are often expected to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of their patients. Indeed health protecting health-care workers has the added benefit to contributing to quality patient care and health system strengthening. Some of the same measures to protect patients from infections, such as adequate staffing, protect health-care workers from injury.