It wasn’t easy, and at one point prospects for passage seemed shaky. However, the needlestick legislation that was introduced in the New Jersey legislature in the spring of 1999 was FINALLY signed by New Jersey Governor Whitman shortly after the dawn of the New Year. The Governor’s signing came a few weeks after the legislation had passed for a second time in both houses of New Jersey’s legislature with virtually no opposition.
It was the Governor’s conditional veto of the legislation in October that had forced its amendment after unanimous passage in mid-1999. Her support was assured when two small compromises were included in the bill’s second draft.
Despite the changes, the legislation will provide a strong, vital protection to health care workers and their patients. Under the legislation, New Jersey hospitals and nursing homes must implement safe needle systems at their facilities within one year from the date of the Governor’s signing the bill into law.
Specifically, the compromises provide for an extension of the implementation of safe needle systems to three years for pharmaceutical companies, while allowing a hospital or nursing home to object to implementation of the new system in specific situations where the provider can show that harm would result to a patient. However, the provider’s objection must be approved by the state’s Department of Health.
"It is a great day for all health care workers in New Jersey!" stated HPAE President Ann Twomey after the bill’s signing. "Hopefully, it is a first step in the enactment of other parts of our legislative program, such as establishing safe-staffing ratios in hospitals and nursing homes, and banning mandatory overtime, that will raise the quality of health care in our state to where it should be."