Hairdressers of the world unite against hidden dangers of the salon

Hairdressing is not an obviously dangerous occupation. Yet working in a hair salon or a barber’s shop can provoke skin conditions, musculoskeletal diseases such as arthritis and tendonitis and work-related asthma.

Now Usdaw, the shopworkers’ union which represents many of Britain’s estimated 140,000 hairdressers, is calling for a “new deal” to protect them. Paddy Lillis, the union’s deputy general secretary, said the government needed to give “proper protection” to barbers and hairdressers, the majority of whom are female and younger than 40.

A Europe-wide agreement on health and safety standards for the industry has been blocked by the European commission, under pressure from successive British governments. “It’s time we had a new deal for hairdressers,” Lillis said. “All too often the safety of shopworkers is overlooked in the mistaken belief they work in low-risk environments.

“This is a mistake the UK government made when they scaled back Health and Safety Executive inspections and slashed inspections by local authorities who enforce safety in shops, warehouses and offices. It is time that the government and the European commission took these risks to the health and safety of hairdressers seriously and gave them proper protection.”

Research indicates that hairdressers are at risk from seemingly innocuous activities such as washing hair, cutting hair and using hairspray. Repeatedly washing hands can lead to dermatitis, a non-contagious sensitivity to chemicals that causes painful cracked skin and bleeding, and research has shown that 70% of hairdressers have suffered from skin conditions.

Breathing in hairspray and other chemicals may be linked to asthma, according to some studies. Using scissors day in, day out can provoke arthritis and tendonitis in the hands and thumb, through loss of cartilage.

And hair dye has been blamed for a link between hairdressing and bladder cancer, although Cancer Research UK believes this is more likely to be the result of older hair dye ingredients which have been discontinued. Most of these issues could be solved by wearing appropriate gloves and taking regular breaks.

Rebecca Walker had been a hairdresser for nearly 10 years when she developed arthritis. The first signs were a “really stiff shoulder”. “I thought that maybe I’d been overworking it, but it didn’t go away and the pain moved to my elbow,” she said.

Within two months she had resigned because she was taking too much time off because of the pain in her wrists and hands. “I suppose I’m quite a determined person so I didn’t want to give up,” she said. So in 2011 Walker opened her own salon, quirkydo in Macclesfield, and now employs several other people.

“There have been times I’m not sure how I’m going to get through the day, but if I give myself a break for half an hour between clients, it’s OK,” she said.

The picture is different on the continent where hairdressers are more likely to be employees. Regina Richter has been a hairdresser in Leipzig for 51 years, but for the last 30 years she has suffered major back problems due to standing up for eight hours a day. “It seems to be affecting my younger colleagues more now,” she said. “After four or five years they are starting to experience pain. I think it is because the pressure has increased – now everyone has to cut hair as quickly as possible to get as many clients as possible.”

She believes that sometimes being able to sit down while cutting hair, and using ergonomic scissors and lighter hair dryers, would have prevented or delayed her condition.

In 2012, the union that represents about one million hairdressers across the EU, Uni Europa, was involved in drawing up an agreement for EU member states to sign up to shared health and safety standards for hairdressers. But since Jean-Claude Juncker became president of the European commission, the agreement has been blocked, under pressure led by Britain and some other parts of the EU, according to Oliver Roethig, regional secretary of Uni Europa.

“When we look at hairdressing, it’s the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Social legislation by the EU has been completely taken off the agenda by the Juncker commission. He said the EU must not be big on the smaller things. But we don’t think that hairdressers having to give up work is a small thing.”

In the UK, where nearly half of all hairdressers are self-employed, it can be difficult for individual stylists to raise health and safety issues in their salon, and given the role of Britain in obstructing progress at a European level, life after Brexit is unlikely to get any easier.

In 2009, the Health and Safety Executive handed over responsibility for its campaign on dermatitis to the Hairdressing and Beauty Industry Authority (Habia) and the National Hairdressers’ Federation.

However, Habia’s website refers to health and safety only from an employers’ perspective and does not offer guidance to hairdressers.

Hilary Hall, chief executive of the National Hairdressers’ Federation, said it did offer guidance to employers on contracting dermatitis and advised staff to wear vinyl gloves when washing hair.

“The directive pretty well captures what is available in the UK,” she said. “The difference is enforcement. The individual is responsible and they could be subject to inspections. We feel it is better to let people choose.”

THE DANGERS

Dermatitis

A study in 2004 revealed that 70% of hairdressers in Britain had suffered from work-related dermatitis, in the form of red, sore and sometimes itchy skin, mainly to the hands and fingers but also to the arms, face and neck.

Asthma

In France, a paper published in 2003 showed that 20% of women affected by work-related asthma were hairdressers, compared with 1% for the general population.

Arthritis

According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, musculoskeletal disorders are five times more prevalent among hairdressers than in the general population. Research published in the journal Work in 2009 showed that in a study of 145 hairdressers, 41% experienced ‘work-related upper limb disorders’.

Cancer

An analysis of 42 bladder cancer studies in 2010 showed that hairdressers faced a risk 30 to 35% higher than the general public. However, Cancer Research UK says that because cancer can take many years to develop, this may be due to exposure to older chemicals that are no longer used.

Hairdressers of the world unite against hidden dangers of the salon

Shared concerns unite all sides of the euthanasia debate | Peter Beresford

Brigit Forsyth, the actor best know as Thelma in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? is currently playing a terminally ill musician on stage. Her character in Killing Time says she’s a “prime candidate for a one-way trip to Switzerland”. Forsyth has disclosed that her GP grandfather helped dying patients end their lives and that she is in favour of euthanasia. Her comments are the latest in a long line of opinions on legalised assisted dying reported in the press, which has a habit of oversimplifying the complex arguments for and against. And this seems to be damaging our ability to hold meaningful public debate on the subject.

With this in mind, a study funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation sought the views of people with strongly opposed opinions on the matter. Participants in both groups included people with palliative care backgrounds, older and disabled people, those from organisations concerned with care and support and individuals from academic, social work and policy backgrounds.

What emerged is a surprising amount of common ground. People with apparently polarised views on legalising the right to die often shared areas of interest and concern. It is these areas that should form the basis for further public discussion, argues the report, Assisted Dying: Developing the Debate, which is published on Wednesday by the Shaping Our Lives network of user-led groups, service users and disabled people.

Shared concerns included clear agreement that palliative care for terminally ill people is inadequate. Whether for or against assisted dying, participants showed a willingness to discuss quality of life for terminally ill people, the value placed on good-quality care, and how to invest in and provide access to this care in the face of economic inequality.

Participants recognised that the debate on legalising assisted dying was taking place in an unequal society: we often place lower social value on older, sick, and disabled people. The research identified a willingness to discuss prevailing societal values, including the concept of “being a burden” on society; the value society placed on social care and support work; and our social attitudes towards death and dying. “How should assisted dying be funded?”, “Where should it be performed?”, and “What methods and means of self-administering a fatal dose should be used?”, were just some of the common questions raised.

Despite disagreement about the extent to which detailed processes and safeguards should be included in assisted dying legislation, participants from across the spectrum of opinion generally agreed that the “how” questions were not being discussed in enough depth.

Areas of shared understanding also emerged when respondents discussed ethical and existential ideas around death and dying, including the psychological aspects of pain and suffering, both for individuals and their loved ones. “All participants had a wish to find the best way forward with compassion for people who are terminally ill, regardless of being for or against legalising assisted dying,” the report concludes.

The study shows that the issues are far more complex than much of the public debate has so far allowed. Death and dying is a core issue for human beings, and public debate must reflect this. It is time to embrace the personal, social, policy and ethical issues that participants have highlighted.

Back in the theatre, Forsyth’s dying musician is visited by a young carer (Zoe Mills) who feels it is her duty to help put older people out of their misery. According to the reviews, she comes to realise that life and death is more nuanced.

Shared concerns unite all sides of the euthanasia debate | Peter Beresford

I have seen death unite families and spill secrets that tear them apart

There’s a lot people don’t know about dying.

Most people are terrified of it. We don’t talk about it, and when we do it’s with hushed voices and delicate words. Most of us are blissfully ignorant until it forces us to take notice of it, whether it be because of a terminal illness, a fatal car accident or a loved one snatched from our lives. We are woefully unprepared for it. What are we supposed to do? What should we say? You never imagine it happening to you.

It is a sensitive subject, because deep down we know that it is the one thing in all our lives that is inevitable. Death does not discriminate, and it makes every single one of us equal. I was terrified of it too, but after seven years as an intensive care nurse I am familiar enough with death to be able to see it differently to most.

Death is ugly. It’s not glamorous, and most people do not close their eyes and slip away peacefully at home

Death is ugly. It’s not glamorous, and most people do not close their eyes and slip away peacefully at home in their beds, surrounded by loving family. The death I see comes with plastic tubes and cannulas shoved into oozing blood vessels, giant machines that hiss, click and shriek alarms as they mechanise the life of a human being, and a rainbow of bad smells. It comes with cheap fabric curtains, stiff white sheets and sunken, fluid-swollen skin. It comes with an unexpected phone call that drags you from your bed into cold and uncomfortable waiting rooms at 3am. Even if it is expected, it still comes with an icy shock and a deep, gut-wrenching sadness.

I have seen death unite families that haven’t spoken to each other for 10 years – arguments are forgotten, old grudges are meaningless. I have seen death spill secrets that tear families apart. I have seen a woman bring her lover to the bedside for comfort while her husband lay unconscious. I have called security for two brothers who started to fight about inheritance over the top of their dying mother’s body. I have held in my arms a young woman after her father died, who cried tears of relief at a future without his constant abuse. I have caught grown men from hitting the floor when they faint at the sight of their best mate lying unconscious on a ventilator. I have broken the ribs of patients by doing chest compressions as I am trying to resuscitate them, and not regretted a single one even if they don’t make it. One man, after several hours of stoic silence at his dying wife’s bedside, suddenly broke down in tears and told me in detail about the last time they made love before she collapsed on the way to work with a massive heart attack. I have had a chair thrown at me by the son of a woman who couldn’t be saved, even after 50 bags of blood and three hours of non-stop resuscitation. Death makes you behave in ways you didn’t realise were inside you.

Related: I am dying and I want everyone to talk about it

At 22 years old, three months after finishing my nursing degree, I withdrew the life support from my first brain-dead patient – a man only a year older than me, who was hit by a truck while he was cycling to his girlfriend’s house. I cried for four hours straight and had to be sent home early from work in a taxi because I couldn’t pull myself together enough to drive. I had no idea how to deal with my own feelings, let alone provide comfort to his family and friends. I couldn’t fathom why this particular man, with his beautiful girlfriend and his entire life ahead of him, had just died in front of me. The injustice of it haunted me for days afterward.

Not long after that, I spent three night shifts caring for an 80-year-old grandmother who had been savagely raped and beaten with a fire extinguisher in her own backyard while she was gardening. The trauma to her brain was so severe that the neurosurgeons had to remove a third of her skull to relieve the swelling. Her family was devastated, and as her condition worsened on the morning of my last night shift, they begged us to stop her life support and let her pass away unaware of the horrors that she had suffered. We did.

Dying can be an incredibly moving experience to be a part of. Only recently, I was holding the feathery hand of a 98-year-old woman as she whispered her last breath. Usually, I am a quiet presence in the background, gently adjusting sedative doses of painkillers and waiting to hand over tissues and cups of tea to teary-eyed relatives. This woman had no living family left, and had spent the last year in a nursing home without anyone for company. The nursing home told us that she had been a classical opera singer, and had worked for years in a mission hospital in Africa with her husband.

Related: This is not Casualty – in real life CPR is brutal and usually fails

Now she was comatose in intensive care, surrounded by loud machines that kept her fragile heart beating and her lungs breathing. Now it was up to me to gift her a peaceful and dignified exit from this world, after 98 years of sparkling life. It’s an honour to be present at the end of a life – especially one as long and rich as this woman’s.

Being on such intimate terms with death makes you realise that life is fleeting, fragile and unpredictable. Accepting death is terrifying, but not as terrifying as the thought of wasting the time that you have left before it does. Make sure you die happy.

If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com.

Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

I have seen death unite families and spill secrets that tear them apart

United kingdom religious leaders unite towards FGM

Lynne Featherstone, international development minister, said faith and community leaders were fundamental to efforts to end FGM. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

Religious and community leaders have signed a historic declaration condemning female genital mutilation, but said there are still barriers to ending the practice in the UK.

The Somali Bravanese Community, Muslim Women’s Network UK and the Church of England were among 160 groups to have voiced support for the declaration, which states that the practice is not supported by any religious doctrine. At a meeting in Westminster on Wednesday, they promised to take the message into their communities.

Norman Baker, minister for crime prevention, said the declaration– the first of its kind – was part of a push to win “hearts and minds” in the battle against FGM, which affects 125 million women and girls worldwide.

Baker said the summit was a “landmark moment”. “By bringing together religious and community leaders to forge a commitment to condemn this shocking practice, we are working to support communities to abandon the practice themselves.”

Asked if there was any resistance to the declaration Yousif al-Khoei, of Al-Khoei Foundation, said: “There are always some barriers, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. But the majority of scholars are against FGM, and already leaders from Somalian, Egyptian, Nigerian and other affected communities are signing up and are committed to change. They are taking this issue seriously, but it takes time.”

The Muslim Council of Britain has said it has launched its own campaign against FGM, but had not been contacted by the Home Office. “We were not asked by the Home Office to sign. Should the opportunity arise, we will,” said a spokeswoman.

The Home Office said the declaration was a voluntary charter, and it encouraged all groups to sign up.

The fight to end FGM has gathered pace in recent months, with the government introducing data collection by health professionals and launching awareness-raising campaigns.

Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service has brought the first FGM case to court. After pressure from a Guardian campaign, which won the support of 250,000 signatories, and the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Michael Gove, the UK’s education secretary, sent a letter to teachers in England and Wales warning them of the dangers of FGM.

Lynne Featherstone, international development minister, said that faith and community leaders, who will formally sign the declaration at a girls’ summit hosted by the prime minister in July, were fundamental in the fight to end FGM. “They have the power and the influence to bring about change in their communities and communicate the true harm that is caused by this practice,” she said.

FGM involves the removal of a girls outer sexual organs and can cause lifelong psychological and physical complications. An estimated 20,000 girls in the UK are thought to be at risk of the practice.

Sheikh Tayeb Mustapha Cham, imam and founder of the Taiba Welfare Foundation, said some imams still resisted condemning FGM, but religious leaders had a responsibly to speak out. “Before there were barriers when we talked, but now we can openly condemn [the practice]. Now it is only imams who are isolated from society who still support this practice. Together we can remove those barriers and say this is nothing to do with religion,” he said. “The voice [of religious leaders] will be heard, and if the advice comes from them, they will be obeyed.”

United kingdom religious leaders unite towards FGM

Nations Unite to Support Avert Disease Outbreaks

Nations unite to aid prevent condition outbreaks.  A Worldwide Health Agenda to avert and battle infectious condition outbreaks ahead of they spread globally is taking place with the aid of the United States and 26 other nations.

Overall health officials in the U.S. say there are also numerous countries lacking the well being care capable of notifying other countries all around the globe when infectious conditions surface in their remote areas.  According to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Well being and Human Solutions, much less than 20 percent of nations are prepared to act in response to emerging infectious conditions.  She points out:

“Germs do not recognize or stop at nationwide borders.  A risk anywhere is indeed a threat everywhere.”

Nations unite to assist avoid illness outbreaks

The meeting took location on February 13, 2014, with the U.S. and other nations, like France, Russian Federation, Argentina, Republic of Korea, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Ethiopia, United Kingdom, Finland, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Uganda, South Africa, Vietnam, and Mexico.

Reviews from scientists assert they detected the spread of a amount of older ailments in new spots, which consists of the 1st manifestation of mosquito-borne chikungunya virus in the Caribbean.  Nonetheless, at this most current meeting, the U.S. praised China for alerting other nations about the emergence of last year’s bird flu.

Saudi Arabia attended the meeting, as well.  Their attendance is significant, in that nations are playing near attention to a mysterious new respiratory virus emerging in Saudi Arabia.  According to the Centers for Disease Handle and Prevention (CDC), the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was 1st reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012.  MERS is a viral respiratory sickness triggered by coronavirus referred to as MERS-CoV.

Targets of the Worldwide Health Agenda to fight illness outbreaks

The purpose of this new energy entails the U.S. collaborating with other nations to boost nearby condition monitoring and avert disease outbreaks, build exams for various pathogens, and aid areas develop and strengthen programs to respond and report to public health emergencies.

The Obama administration is in the hunt for $ 45 million for new funding to expand the work.  In addition, the CDC strategies to redirect $ forty million from its present spending budget for equivalent tasks in 10 other unnamed countries.

Nations Unite to Support Avert Disease Outbreaks