Hospital Shooting Shines Light on Increasing Violence Against Health Care Workers

Amid a global pandemic, they were hailed heroes. Communities praised doctors and nurses for tackling COVID-19 head-on. But according to health care organizations, the virus wasn’t the only danger they faced.

“For the Emergency Nurses Association, we take workplace violence seriously,” said President Jennifer Schmitz.

A recent study published by the National Institute of Health showed that over the last couple of years, nearly half of health care workers were physically abused.

“Many times, whether it’s verbal or other forms of this, people experience it once in their shift. So, it’s not an uncommon experience,” said Schmitz.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hospital workers are six times more likely to face a serious injury as a result of workplace violence than workers in any other private sector industry.

While extreme, incidents like Saturday’s fatal shooting at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, and another that recently left four dead at a Tulsa hospital, aren’t isolated.

“We’ve had nurses break their wrist, break their ankles,” said Stephen Love, president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital.

Love said hospitals across North Texas set their own safety protocol, but many focus on de-escalation and active shooter trainings.

He said the Hospital Council has joined other groups in lobbying congress to pass the Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees or SAVE Act, a bipartisan bill sitting in the House, similar to one recently passed to protect airline crews.

“We need to get it passed expeditiously. But essentially, it gives health care workers those same protections, so that, federally, the perpetrator could be charged,” said Love.

It’s just one solution for a problem that advocates have said could make it even tougher to recruit and retain much-needed medical staff.

“We need our health care workers to take care of our communities, and so trying to be able to support and stand behind them and say that this is not an acceptable way to engage in a health care setting is really important,” said Schmitz.

Advocates, like the ENA, have also pushed for hospitals to adopt a standard mitigation, or safety, plan that would a similar level of safety for health care workers nationwide.

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