Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-11-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20100211.3.4-008"2
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"− Mr President, there are over one million preventable needle-stick injuries on healthcare workers each year across the whole of the EU. Many of those who are injured, and their families, face an agonising wait to find out whether they have contracted a blood-borne infection such as HIV or hepatitis C.
The risks of infection following an accident are not insignificant. Experts tell us the chances of infection are one in three for hepatitis B, 1 in 30 for hepatitis C and 1 in 300 for HIV. Take the case of Juliet Young. Juliet was a nurse who died in 2008, seven years after contracting HIV while taking blood from an infected patient in a London hospital. Juliet accidentally pricked her thumb on the needle after it slipped when she was taking a sample. Or the case of a dental nurse working in a prison who was pricked by a needle that was used on an inmate who had hepatitis A, B, and C and was HIV positive. Imagine the agonising wait that she had; she has now discovered that she has contracted hepatitis C. This nurse, and many others like her, are continuing to campaign on this issue.
I first became involved in 2004 when I visited a hospital in my constituency at the instigation of Health First Europe, and then on World Aids Day on 1 December that year I hosted an exhibition with Stephen Hughes in this Parliament. Healthcare workers from across the European Union visited us, visited the Parliament, desperate for our help. Those of you who had the opportunity to meet with those nurses and other healthcare workers could not have failed to have been moved by their plight, and in 2006 we passed a Parliament resolution on protecting European healthcare workers from blood-borne infections due to needle-stick injuries. This resolution called on the Commission to submit a legislative proposal to amend Directive 2000/54/EC on biological agents within three months. This proposal never came, but Stephen Hughes and I did not give up the fight.
I personally have amended many reports and resolutions calling for action, spoken in plenary on this issue a dozen times and tabled countless parliamentary questions. Following meetings with Commissioner Špidla, we were told in 2008 that a proposal was being prepared by the Commission and we were on the brink of achieving this. However, at the last minute, this was blocked as the social partners promised they would try, at long last, to reach an agreement, much to our frustration.
A comprehensive agreement on the necessary requirements was eventually reached by the social partners in the summer of 2009. My resolution supports the agreement wholeheartedly. The Council must adopt the proposed directive urgently so that the Commission can ensure that it is implemented effectively and without delay. Healthcare workers across Europe are depending on us. Our healthcare workers cannot wait and should not continue to be placed in danger. It is really time now to act decisively."@en1
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