Personal protective equipment: health care employees.

Existing law requires an employer to furnish employment and a place of employment that is safe and healthful for the employees and to establish, implement, and maintain an effective injury prevention program, as prescribed. Regulations enacted by the Department of Industrial Relations regulate the nature and use personal protective equipment and regulate practices in health care facilities connected with aerosol transmissible diseases. This bill would require public and private employers of workers in a general acute care hospital, as defined, to supply those employees who provide direct patient care or provide services that directly support personal care with the personal protective equipment necessary to comply with the regulations described above, as specified. The bill would also require an employer to ensure that the employees use the personal protective equipment supplied to them. The bill would further require that an employer in this context, beginning April 1, 2021, maintain a supply of specified equipment in an amount equal to 3 months of normal consumption. The bill would require an employer to provide an inventory of its stockpile and a copy of its written procedures, as specified, to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health upon request. The bill would authorize the assessment of a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for each violation to maintain the required stockpile, except in certain circumstances. The bill would make a statement of legislative findings. The bill would require an employer who is obligated to maintain an equipment stockpile and who controls a facility or setting in which another employer provides health care services to maintain the required equipment for the other employer. The bill would require a general acute care hospital, on or before January 15, 2021, to be prepared to report to the Department of Industrial Relations, under penalty of perjury, its highest 7-day consecutive daily average consumption of personal protective equipment during the 2019 calendar year and would exempt general acute care hospitals under the jurisdiction of the State Department of State Hospitals from this requirement, as specified. The bill would require an employer to establish and implement effective written procedures for periodically determining the quantity and types of equipment used in its normal consumption. The bill would also authorize the division to enforce these provisions through the issuance of citations, as specified. By expanding the crime of perjury, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.