Federal safety inspectors found that the US Department of Veterans Affairs endangered maintenance workers at its healthcare facility in Prescott by allowing them to work on steam lines without ensuring they followed required safety procedures. The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration identified one willful violation and two repeated violations by the department’s Northern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System and issued three serious notices for exposing employees to burns and other serious injuries. OSHA identified the violations during an October 2022 inspection. The findings come less than two years after a pair of workers died at the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in West Haven, Connecticut, in November 2020 after suffering fatal burns while working on a steam line. In that case, OSHA cited similar violations to those found in Prescott.
During the inspection, OSHA inspectors determined the Prescott facility lacked energy-isolating procedures — also known as lockout/tagout — that are designed to prevent the release of hazardous energy when steam lines are being maintained or serviced. They found employees followed an ad-hoc process that did not meet OSHA requirements, and that the facility failed to train workers on safety procedures.
