UCLA, Metropolitan Hospitals Cited Over Worker Asbestos Peril

Metropolitan State Hospital for the mentally ill and UCLA Medical Center have been cited for “serious” violations of worker safety laws after state investigators discovered cancer-causing asbestos debris in crawl spaces and equipment rooms at both facilities.

The hazards are largely to maintenance and custodial workers, rather than medical staff or the public, said investigators for Cal/OSHA, the state job safety agency.

At Metropolitan Hospital in Norwalk, inspectors found asbestos that had deteriorated and could easily be inhaled when disturbed by workers, as well as exposed electrical wiring and black widow spiders under buildings, said Brad Wolfe, who conducted a four-month investigation at the hospital.

“As far as the condition of the asbestos in the crawl spaces (under buildings), it’s as bad as any I’ve seen. There’s lots of debris and lots of friable (crumbly) debris,” Wolfe said.

Very Dangerous

Crumbling asbestos is extremely dangerous because it can flake into the air and be inhaled, causing lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

Metropolitan was cited for five serious safety violations and one lesser violation and UCLA for two serious violations Thursday, culminating separate inquiries prompted by worker complaints, investigators said. The sanctions carry no fines or penalties, because both hospitals are public facilities.

Violations are classified as serious if they create a “substantial probability that an employee will suffer death or serious physical harm” and if the employer, through “reasonable diligence,” should have known of the problem and corrected it, Cal/OSHA spokesman Richard Stephens said.

Investigators said they found no evidence at either hospital to indicate that the general public was exposed to asbestos. However, in one incident at Metropolitan, patients may have been exposed to asbestos, Wolfe said.

Delivery Rooms

At UCLA, asbestos debris--including small chunks and strips of insulation--was discovered in an attic area above three labor and delivery rooms and in equipment rooms on all nine floors of the medical center’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, investigators said.

In both cases, plumbers did not clean up properly after removing asbestos insulation from water pipes, creating a potential hazard for workers entering those areas, investigators said.

University tests for airborne asbestos in the labor and delivery rooms, which were separated by solid plaster ceilings from the debris, revealed no trace of the substance, a UCLA spokesman said.

Asbestos, an unusually strong fiber, was commonly used as an insulator and fire retardant in homes, offices and businesses until the 1970s, when its health hazards became widely known.

At Metropolitan, which was cited for two other asbestos-related safety violations in 1987 and eight others in 1983, Cal/OSHA since June has closed crawl spaces or equipment rooms in 20 aging buildings because of deteriorated asbestos.

Three citations were also issued against the hospital because of an August incident in which maintenance workers ripped out part of a water-damaged office ceiling, only to find later that it was composed of materials that were up to 20% asbestos.

Before tearing out the ceiling, the custodians apparently were told by their supervisor that tests showed there was no asbestos in the ceiling, Wolfe said, citing interviews with hospital employees. As a result, the custodians wore no respirators or protective clothing, and office workers and patients were allowed to come and go during the three-day project, he said.

“There was some threat to both the office workers and the patients who were coming and going,” Wolfe said.

Tests for airborne asbestos several weeks after the incident revealed no unsafe levels of asbestos in the office, but Wolfe concluded that asbestos levels during the removal would have exceeded state safety levels, he said.

Metropolitan was cited for failure to monitor the office’s air for asbestos, failure to clean up asbestos properly and failure to conduct medical examinations of employees within 30 days of exposure.

William Silva, executive director at Metropolitan, disputed Wolfe’s conclusion that workers had been placed in a dangerous situation because of inaccurate information from a supervisor.

Followed Policies

“We followed all the policies and procedures,” he said. “We did all we could do. We did the best we could. We’re very conscious of asbestos. That’s the position we’re taking.”

Silva said the hospital has identified asbestos hazards in several cases since 1982, when it began a $20-million rehabilitation of the facility’s 56 structures, all built between 1916 and 1955.

Employees are trained to identify asbestos, and a private contractor has been hired to remove it when it is hazardous, he said.

“We don’t put our employees at risk,” Silva said.

Worker union representatives, however, said in interviews that they have been routinely ordered to work around dangerous, crumbly asbestos and have forced action by Metropolitan by filing numerous grievances and complaints since 1983. Cal/OSHA officials confirmed that they had received a number of complaints from the hospital’s workers.

Union representatives “led me by the hand” to the problems last summer, Wolfe said.

“They were aware of areas that were contaminated with asbestos,” he said.

Recent Survey

Asbestos debris at UCLA has been removed since it was discovered in July, as have asbestos scraps found in a recent university survey of all maintenance jobs at the medical center within the last year, said Allen Solomon, an assistant vice chancellor.

Maintenance and skilled trades employees have been directed to halt work when asbestos, which insulates many of the medical center’s water pipes and steel beams, is discovered, he said. A private asbestos-removal firm has been hired to remove or encapsulate asbestos materials that constitute a hazard, he said.