As safety departments get squeezed for $, we are seeing a spike in a severe deficiency in a site’s respiratory protection training. I first got wind of this when a client I was scheduled to do some respiratory protection training for canceled the course. This is a client we provide other services for, so while I was on site recently, I asked him about the respirator training and how he got it done. His response was the same company that did the fit testing trained our people while they were being fit tested. Sound familiar? Is this how your employees get their annual training… during their fit-testing? What would you say if I told you that what is happening at the fit-testing is REQUIRED as part of the fit-testing procedure but in NO WAY replaces the actual ANNUAL respirator training…
emphasis by me, but this is from Appendix A to § 1910.134: Fit Testing Procedures (Mandatory)