Giving employee asprin

Evswife · October 2005

One of our managers had an employee come into her office this morning complaining of chest pains and tightness in the chest. She was in obvious distress. Her first response was to give her an asprin. She then asked the employee if she wanted to go to the hospital, she agreed. The manager called the employee's spouse and he met them at the hospital. The manager just received a call from the spouse that the employee had in fact suffered a heart attack.

Here is my question. We were told by a previous HR Director to take all pain releiver out of the company first aid kit. That we could not distribute medication to employees...not even asprin. Is this true? This manager giving an employee an asprin could have very well saved her life. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Gillian3 · October 2005

You can find several previous threads on this topic, with responses divided into two groups - those that think any medication of any kind should be banned (liability) and those that think providing basic stuff is just common sense and those that think differently are listening to attorneys too much. I'm in the latter group. Thanks for the example that says I'm on the right side. I don't know of any examples where the providing of an aspirin has ever caused liability for anyone and I doubt that there is one.

marc · October 2005

I would add a note of paranoid caution. Remember the tylenol scare a few years ago - cripes, it has probably been 20 years by now? Because of that incident, we now have all those tamper proof caps and individually wrapped products. It is in that spirit that I suggest that if you are going to dispense these OTC products, at least get them individually wrapped so that some psycho nut job does not substitue an arsenic pill or a meth tab or some such for the aspirin.

Evswife · October 2005

Thanks for that perspective. Great tip.

Evswife · October 2005

Thanks so much for the response.

Parabeagle · October 2005

Our lawyer is fond of saying that all legal advice provided is going to err on the side of caution and that whether or not we take the advice is a matter of risk assessment.

Consequently, we do provide pain relievers (individually packaged doses provided by our first aid provider) to our employees. We don't dispense them, but the employees know where they are and can help themselves. If an employee has a headache, I'd much rather he grab a couple of aspirin and go back to work than go home because he's not feeling well.

The circumstances outlined in your post, in my opinion, are a perfect example of a situation in which the risk of exposure to liability was far outweighed by the benefit to be derived from giving the employee aspirin. I'll defend that lawsuit any day.

njjel · October 2005

I do not advise giving ee's any medications at all. This has been supported by our legal counsel. Can there be times when it is not a problem, sure, however the exposure to risk is too great. Now if a co-worker came to me personally and said do you have any aspirin and I did, I would give them one. It was coming from me not from the company.

Balloonman1 · October 2005

They make dispensers for the individual tablets so you can have them available for purchase by the employees which relieves you of the liability, but also makes them available for the employee. Conney Safety Products sells them, and they can be wall mounted.

My $0.02 worth......
The Balloonman

hhaynal · October 2005

All great responses and each hit on the main issues for liability. What we do to minimize the risk is, No. 1, we don't dispense the OTC items. Store them in a First Aid kit (large industrial size) that is easily accessible to employees. No. 2, the items are the individually packaged items. Anything other than these items, the employee goes to the nurse who is appropriately licensed to dispense medications.

gismo · October 2005

Am I to understand you that the EE died?

marc · October 2005

Caren, I am not sure to whom you are directing your questions, but on the off chance it is me - the Tylenol scare happened long ago - I think it was in Chicago - but some wacko substituted some sort of poison for tylenol that was sitting on the counter waiting to be sold. This was back before tamper proof containers - apparently the dude just opened the container, took out a couple and added a couple of other pills - I do think there was a death in the case.

He was trying to extort money from Tylenol - a couple of copy cats came along - all tylenol was removed from the shelves - and eventually the tamper proof container was legislated.

hrdir03nafcu · October 2005

I would weigh in with those who allow EEs to self-medicate (w/legal OTC drugs, of course).

We make aspirin, tylenol, etc, available in a central location, EEs know where it's kept, and they are free to help themselves as they need.

The one point I would add is that our policy manual clearly instructs staff that the FIRST thing they should do if they or another staff member seems to be seriously ill is to CALL 911 (BEFORE they call HR, or call their supervisor, or take an aspirin).

Since your EE apparently did suffer a heart attack, getting her to the hospital in a timely way was of the essence in saving her life in this case. Next time, I would just suggest reversing the order of actions in response: call 911 first; then give the EE an aspirin if they want one (and if the 911 rep says it's OK to do so).

Balloonman1 · October 2005

FYI,
I used to work in a place with an older workforce, and I have dealt with 5 heart attacks. In EACH case they did not want an ambulance called. In each case I had the ambulance called, the HR staff was well versed and understood that I wanted them there asap. My goal was to NEVER perform mouth to mouth on an employee!

My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman

Giving employee asprin

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