Safety+Health Magazine: Lisa Brosseau has taught or consulted on respiratory protection for about three decades. Yet some aspects of it are unclear even to her.
“That’s how complicated the topic can be,” said the industrial hygiene consultant and former professor at the universities of Minnesota and Illinois at Chicago. “There’s just a myriad of things with respirators that people don’t really understand.”
3 comments:
Before I came to CMU I didn’t know about the test for getting a respirator. I didn’t think that they regulated those things (I should have thought about it more because it is a breathing device, and anything that restrict airflow can be dangerous, duh). I am not surprised that a lot of people doing get test fit for a respirator (why a lot of people don’t follow OSHA guidelines and then they wonder why they get hurt? Baffles me) I must say that it was relieving to hear that many other people aren’t aware of the regulations (like I was) and that was cited as the main source of failure to be test fit for a respirator. I like that we have to go through the OSHA training at the beginning of our first year (even though a lot of it was common sense) there is a lot of important information and safety guidelines that should be followed (even when someone of them are restricting) OSHA rules may be annoying but they keep people safe (because if a guideline was added, it mean someone somewhere probably was hurt to killed because they didn’t think about it). Reading about what the test actually it was pretty interesting. I don’t think I will personally be getting a respirator or need to take a fit test, it is interesting to see why they the things they do. (A was also unaware of the two different types of test: negative and positive pressure tests) It seems annoying to have to go through this test (especially because you have to do it multiple times depending on if things change, like health, other PPE, etc) but I feel like it is very helpful to be wearing the proper gear to protect you
Over the summer, we had a lot of conversations about fit testing because there were people who were working there who had never experienced a fit test before who needed to use a respirator because of the job they were doing. We specifically had a conversation about how people may be uncomfortable with the extensive process of testing if they were not expecting it, since it is almost more of a doctor’s appointment than just trying on a piece of equipment. There is a part of me that thinks we should have shown everyone who was intending on getting fit tested for a respirator over the summer this article so they could have had a better understanding of who was doing the process, their rights as an employee, and what exactly was happening to ensure they were safe and the company was OSHA compliant. The extensiveness of this test is definitely annoying, but incredibly necessary for safety. I think that it is really important to understand the ways to best protect yourself when working in a shop environment, so breaking it down in this way definitely gave me a clearer understanding of what was happening, even if I will probably never have to get fit tested for a respirator because of my line of work.
Respirator fit testing is a really interesting topic, especially when you start to talk about how it applies to theater. In many shops, like ours here at CMU, the shop owns a few respirators and allow people to use them as they need them. While this is better than nothing, this really isn't quite how it should work. If you are in a position where you need to wear a respirator, you are supposed to get fit tested. Many theaters forgo this step as it is not cheap. For a theater with any decent number of people who need them, it can be an expensive endeavor to get everyone fit tested. One of the reasons it is so expensive is it involves a full exam from a licensed doctor. This is something we go through and continue to go through every year at the fire station for out SCBA masks. I would urge all theaters to think about investing in the fit testing for their employees that need it.
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