Nurses, technicians, nursing home assistants, and other health care professionals can be subject to work-related injuries. Their job duties often include transporting patients from gurneys to surgical tables or beds, lifting heavy supplies, and exposure to infection.
Work-related injuries in health care can cause temporary or permanent disability. Because a work-related injury typically results in time off work, it is important that employees obtain fair compensation. At Murphy Law Firm, we can help you file a workers’ compensation claim.
Common Types of Injuries in Health Care
Moving patients, lifting heavy boxes, and being exposed to communicable diseases, are just some of the ways in which health care workers can suffer harm.
Some common types of injuries include:
- Overexertion: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states that musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are more than seven times more common in health care workers than other workers. Among those at the highest risk of MSDs are nursing aides and attendants.
- Patient Handling: Manually lifting a patient and transferring his or her from one position or surface to another can cause strains and sprains in the shoulders, lower back, and other parts of the body.
- Slip and Falls: Health care workers are susceptible to slipping and falling on surfaces covered with water and other liquids.
- Understaffing: Whether due to budget limitations, a lack of qualified providers, illness, or another reason, many hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes are understaffed. This heightens the risk of injuries on account of increased pressure to work quickly, as well as a lack of support in assisting with tasks such as heavy lifting and moving patients.
- Infections: Airborne pathogens, as well as exposure to bodily waste and mucus, can cause infections.
- Bloodborne Infectious Disease: Needlesticks increase the likelihood of HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and other bloodborne diseases spreading.
How a Personal Injury Attorney Can Help
If you are injured at work, you are required by law to receive medical care and financial benefits through workers’ compensation. Workers’ compensation can help provide payments to cover lost wages, as well as ongoing treatment and benefits for lasting injuries.
That said, the claims process can be complicated, and claimants routinely settle for less than they are owed. Injured workers are sometimes denied appropriate medication and treatment, and those who are disabled do not receive adequate support in the long term.
At Murphy Law Firm, we fight on behalf of victims of workplace injuries to help ensure none of these things happen to them. As one of the top workers’ compensation law firms in Montana, we know how to help you through the claims process and can handle your entire case. We work tirelessly to make certain work injury victims like you receive fair compensation.
Contact Murphy Law Firm
If you are a health care professional and suffered an injury on the job, contact the team of highly-skilled attorneys at Murphy Law Firm. We will leave no stone unturned and guide you through the process from start to finish to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. Contact us or call (406) 452-2345 today.
