respirator
Hello Safety Gurus it has been some time since I have posted, no new song to sing here. Busy, Busy!
I have a maintenance technician that has presented a doctors note to indicate that he needs a HEPA mask anytime he is introduced to paint due to migraine headaches. The technician is no longer allowed to paint or assist with projects that require painting.
We have no other persons or tasks that require respirators so in light of this we have chosen to not implement a respirator program.
This is where my questions begin. First let me state the technician has a history of migraines however they have been inactive for a period prior to the painting task.
Q1. Is there a HEPA mask that falls outside of the respirator definition? This seems obvious but I am not an expert in this area.
Q2. While the doctor's note indicates "paint" should we expand this to all odors at the discretion of the technician? Within reason!
Q3. There's a whole host of questions that are flooding my mind with different spins on the situation but our ultimate goal is to protect the employee and to abide by the regulations.
Comments (3)
Hi Robert, glad you stopped by...
First things first, HEPA filters are for particulates, and will not filter the solvents that your employee is presumably being affected by.
For the rest of your questions..
1. No. There's nothing that you can wear that will offer anything close to HEPA filtration that is not a respirator.
2. You could...but like I said above, HEPA isn't the answer for any kind of odors
3. What you could do is offer a respirator with VOC cartridges as voluntary use. Voluntary use does still have some requirements under OSHA, but it is less than the full respiratory protection program. One thing that you'd have to do though is to make sure it's truly voluntary and not required. To do this, you'd have to measure exposures to whatever you're using for paint. If you're below the PEL, then respirator use is voluntary. If you're above the PEL, that opens a can of worms, but better to find out this way then have someone get sick or have OSHA find it for you.
Is it paint that causes it? Or a certain type of paint, suggesting a specific chemical in that paint?