Safety Signage

Our safety officer is my wife, Kitty Dimond. Her motto is "A sign is cheaper than a fine." The safety officer/compliance officer should be an anal retentive, obsessive compulsive person with no other interest in life but compliance with bureaucratic rules. Fortunately, Kitty is interested in our granddaughter, her salt water aquarium and its inhabitants, football (specifically, the Packers) and some other things.

But, she is rightfully obsessive about compliance. It doesn't matter that some of the rules are silly and don't apply to us. (We purchase and store relatively small quantities of formaldehyde. Inspectors from OSHA as well as nurses on tours often wonder where the large drums of the stuff are stored. Well those only exist at wood processing plants and computer chip assembly factories. Right - they use many times more formaldehyde than funeral service. Ours is shipped in 16 ounce bottles where the actual chemical content is often less than 25% by volume. The highest content by volume of which I am aware is Dodge Perma-Cav which is just over 50%. Cases requiring this type of fluid are very infrequent.

Now, Bloodborne Pathogens. Funeral Directors are covered under the broad blanket of protocols established for health care workers. We deal with the same potential exposures: fluid splash, needle sticks and others. This is an area requiring coverage in the Hazard Communication Plan and employees must be trained in the use of protective equipment, clothing, gloves, etc.

Additionally, funeral homes must also comply with protective clothing requirements and other safety standards under the Formaldehyde Exposure Rule, a separate OSHA standard.

These are standards and rules that didn't exist before the 1980's. Compliance is very expensive, failure to comply is even more expensive. Who pays the additional tab for protective clothing, respirators, monitoring and special waste removal calculated by the pound?

The people who have to purchase some type of funeral or cremation service.
In short - - - You!

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