Hey all, I'm writing this on behalf of my GF with her knowledge.
My GF works in the dental field and started her 2nd job in the field almost 2 years ago. The CEO of the company, we'll call him Bryan, took control of the company from the owner, who we'll refer to as Jeff, through some alleged shady schemes some time after my GF started working there. Bryan put the office my GF was at in a rough temporary situation, as the office she worked in started getting renovations roughly 3 months ago.
The move to the temporary office was carried out by the dental staff because Bryan wouldn't hire a professional moving crew. The move involved hauling chemicals, cleaning agents, instruments, dental equipment and materials by hand over half a mile to the temporary location. It's worth noting that proper packaging wasn't supplied by the company and they had to use plastic bins to move everything.
The temporary office they are now operating out of is fitted with curtains acting as walls between each operatory and is in a study hall type room. They're also using portable dental units (the piece of equipment that vacuums the saliva and blood, powers the hand held equipment and provides water) instead of dedicated units. This means that the dental staff has to drain the units multiple times each day of the biohazard (saliva, blood, contaminated water, dental debris including fillings and plaque). However, there was no maintenance of the units or protocol put in place for draining and disposal of the biohazard. The company's solution is to dump the units out in a communal sink found in a janitor's closet that isn't part the office space rented by the company.
About the same time this move was put in place, I helped my GF push for a raise because she hadn't been given one in over a year with the company. In the argument we created for her raise, we pointed out the working conditions. In the agreement for a raise, they offered a retention bonus over of $4000 to “help us through this transition”. Half was paid up front and the other would be paid on arrival back to the permanent location after renovations were completed. However, there was no set date as to when that would be, and the contract specified that if she left before relocating back, she would have to return the bonus, which has led to her staying with the comoany but the situation hasn't gotten any better. We used the raise negotiations to bring awareness of the safety issues with handling biohazard unsafely with no protocol but, no solutions were ever implemented.
Soon after my GF's raise, Jeff managed to regain the ownership through legal tactics. A week after Jeff regained control of the company, he flew out to the office and had a brief chat with workers there, including my GF. She made him aware of the situation and this led to a false hope that solutions would ensue. 2 months after Jeff gained control, nothing has been done and uppermanagement is playing the ignorant card claiming that they weren't aware of the issues.
Last week, when my GF was disposing of the biohazard from the unit, the unit clogged and built up pressure, the pressure got too high and spewed the biohazard all over my GF. What made this worse is that management had lied about approving PPE requests and had been denying them for over a month. So she had no protective equipment on. However, because no protocol ever was established, the PPE, if you can call it that, was literally only a gown. This, you would think, was the straw that broke the camel's back, however it was not, and that came yesterday.
When cleaning the instruments in an ultrasonic cleaning machine, my GF's finger was pricked by one of the instruments and it was deep enough to draw blood. The ultrasonic machine only removes residue from the instruments, it doesn't actually sterilize them and sterilization is done AFTER the ultrasonic cleaning. Now, the reason her finger was able to be pricked is because the correct gloves needed for using the ultrasonic machine haven't been provided . The timing of this is interesting to say the least, because last week, the day after the biohazard spilled on her, Jeff along with uppermanagement made a surprise visit to the office. My GF made it clear that safety is neglected and that the issues need to be fixed. She told them what if the biohazard had gotten on an open wound. Patients don't necessarily have to disclose their conditions or diseases if they have any. And being that blood is part of the biohazard, along with saliva and other pathogens, the risk of Hepatitis, HIVs, other STDs and other diseases become a massive concern.
Well, now with her finger getting pricked in biohazard and opening a wound, it's no longer a “what if that happened” scenario. So she was sent to a clinic the get work done and ensure she's OK. However, she was denied treatment because, the company owes an outstanding balance and since it was work related, she wasn't allowed to pay out of pocket for treatment. Management again, played the ignorant card and said they weren't aware of any balances and showed no urgency in getting my GF any treatment, on top of trying to fill the paper work out as a personal non-injury, instead of work-comp. This finally is the last straw and we've decided to gather evidence and are trying to figure out exactly where to go from here.
Some other issues are that there is no eyewash station, no running sinks, no radiation badges are provided, the x-ray machine has been damaged since January 2022 and is sending out scattered radiation, no inspections, on top of everything else mentioned. We're getting the evidence compiled for this and looking for suggestions on how to proceed legally.