[Histonet] Re: Slipping on floors

[John Auld]

My understanding is that in the UK you should not use wheeled chairs on non
carpeted floors.

We recently had new flooring installed in the histo lab and went for non
slip flooring similar to that used in swimming pool areas. It's sooo good
much much better than the old wax impregnated lino that had been down for
years.. The cleaners regularly stipped and buffed the old stuff but even
early in the day before work got underway it was still slippy.

Get your employer to bite the bullet and get real non slip stuff down
before you get sued you know it makes sense

Have a good weekend and our thoughts are with those suffering from the
effects of Hurricane Katrina

John

John Auld MSc CSci FIBMS
BMS 4
Dept of Histopathology and Clinical Cytology
Arrowe Park Hospital
Arrowe Park Road
Upton
Wirral

Internal extn 2560
External Tel 0151 604 7025

From: Tim Wheelock <twheelock <@t> mclean.harvard.edu>
Subject: [Histonet] SLIPPING ON  FLOORS..a  PLAN and ONE MORE QUESTION
To: "'histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu'"
             <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
Message-ID: <3F306829.9010200 <@t> mclean.harvard.edu>
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Thanks so much for everyone's input.
I really appreciate it.
I will start by doing the following:

1) Contact Building Services and ask them strip the wax off, then
strip/clean the floor, say once a month, and then to scrub-buff the most
problematic areas each week.
2) Keep the warning sign up on the door.
3) Try sticky mats in an attempt to contain the paraffin around the
embedding, cutting, and processing areas.
4) Contact the head of safety at McLean about the issue, as well as the
head of the safety sub-committee that I sit on for suggestions.
5) Bring up the issue at our monthly staff meeting.
6) Put all this this in writing so as to make this official and "cover"
myself.

One more question:

I have looked at the VRW on line catalogue.

They advertise 2 kinds of sticky mats.
"Critical Step multi-layered floor mats" and
"Clean Step Multi-layered floor mats with frames"

Is one better than the other for histology labs?
Can you use rolling chairs on the sticky mats?

Thank you,