Question from Seabrook, Texas, USA:

I am the Safety Manager for a small company which has employees stationed throughout the country. We work in numerous chemical refineries, paper mills and power plants and our jobs are considered safety sensitive in most of these facilities. I am a diabetic and do not have a problem telling my fellow workers that I am. However, due to confidentiality rules such as HIPPA, I am unsure whether I can legally talk about a recent incident that we had to our other employees through a safety notice to capture learning opportunities. An employee was hired in with a sore on his leg and we suggested that he obtain a release from his physician before he came to work for us. His personal physician released him to come to work for us and, just recently, I was made aware that this employee had diabetes and was making every kind of excuse to his supervisor about feeling bad, tired etc. without telling the supervisor that he had diabetes and was not taking care of it. He let the sore on his leg get so bad that he now has a staph infection and was ordered by our occupational physician to leave work and seek medical care from his personal physician.
Can we suggest to the employees that have diabetes that we should be informed about their condition due to the fact that if they do not and treat the disease like the above employee did, they jeopardize their safety and the safety of their fellow workers? The owner of our company would never keep somebody from working with us just because they have diabetes, however, due to the fact that we work in safety sensitive positions, I think we must know who has diabetes so we can offer as much assistance and support as necessary.