A nurse was killed when she refused to give a patient a cigarette. Of course, the patient had already committed murder, so what did he have to lose? By using a ballpoint pen, a patient stabbed another nurse in the neck.

A psychiatrist on a ward where I worked was also attacked. After I left the office and building, the patient repeatedly hit the small woman psychiatrist with her handbag, which contained a heavy book. The psychiatrist had injuries to her shoulder and neck and went on sick leave for two months. The patient was immediately transferred to another hospital in the state, one for violent patients who had attacked, primarily, physicians.

None of this happened recently, and the violence at the two hospitals where I worked was always treated the same: transfer when an MD was attacked, quiet room for every other attack. The staff felt demeaned and resentful.

“The risk of workplace violence is not distributed evenly across specialty. Data shows that those who work in the emergency department, in geriatrics, or in psychiatry are substantially more likely to experience violence.”

Today, however, the level of violence, primarily at hospitals, is causing a sudden decision for nursing staff to seek other employment or leave the field entirely because of burnout or a lack of safety. Some estimates place the number of nurses leaving by 2027 at around 600,000. The result is that we have inadequate levels of staffing now, and it will get worse. In fact, hospitals are upping their recruitment abroad to supplement the paltry stream from US sources.

The rise in violence against medical professionals has had a substantial influence on the medical community, causing serious difficulties for both patient care and healthcare workers. Stressed and overworked healthcare professionals may degrade the standard of patient care. Also, the fear of violence can make it difficult for healthcare professionals to carry out their jobs properly, which can reduce productivity and increase the risk of patient care errors. In such a situation, what can be done?

How It Is Being Addressed

The media has been providing information on the issue, and both public awareness and education about it are needed. But is that enough? Obviously, an informed public is needed, but what steps are hospitals taking to protect and train their personnel?

According to research, healthcare is the profession where more violence occurs than in any other workplace, and about 654,000 personnel are injured each year. Yes, this is shocking, and I’m willing to play devil’s advocate here after reading what hospitals are proposing by way of decreasing violence in healthcare settings. No, I am not an expert on the matter, but some of the propositions appear to be circling the wagons without addressing some very real issues.

A perusal of the information that is being provided to healthcare personnel boils down to learning to de-escalate potentially violent incidents, educating the public and patients, planning for escape, where to hide, and how to call for help or security personnel. The one factor that is missing is the most distressing of all. The reasons for violence? Patient dissatisfaction, scarcity of mental health facilities, the opioid crisis, the pandemic—the list goes on.

Using a phrase that has become familiar to many of us, “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” How does that apply here? I believe it is apparent that we are not more forcefully addressing the issue of gun availability, but not simply the ready supply of guns in stores.

The type of gun that is being used in almost all of these violent incidents is one meant for war. To more graphically present what these guns do, I have read in the research that the exit wound is the size of an orange, and survival is all but hopeless.

The issues are broader than employee and patient education, where to hide, or hospital protocols. To say that we are handling the question of gun violence in the US would seem to me to be somewhat naive or evasive. It’s a head-in-the-sand gesture when over 200 mass shootings occurred in the first half of 2023. Anyone wishing for more detailed information on gun violence can search the Gun Violence Archive.

Personnel shortages are only one result of the violence we are seeing. The future history books will carry a good deal of bold-faced type to underscore the recklessness we’ve encountered with regard to loss of life and our responses. The question remains: when will it stop?

The post How Can We Address Increasing Violence Against Healthcare Personnel? appeared first on Medika Life.

Instead, as we rapidly approach the three year mark of the Covid pandemic, healthcare finds itself in many ways, far the worse for wear, not having benefited financially in any way from the pandemic. Staffing issues persist, doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals having abandoned their posts for greener and, let’s be honest, safer, working environments.

Nothing kills job satisfaction faster than the continued thought of catching a potentially fatal disease each time you go to work. Add to that, frustrated, aggressive and often abusive patients and you can see why many professionals opted for a career change.

Do We Now Face the Pandemic of Poverty?

For all the good our lockdowns did, and although debate still rages, it is safe to assume that the general consensus now is that they were a terrible, costly mistake, a collective lapse in judgement that the global economy is still staggering to recover from and never may. In lieu of pumping the American stimulus package into the expansion and development of healthcare for the afflicted, the U.S. opted to shut down its economy and pay the public trillions through its now infamous “stimulus” packages.

America was not alone and countries across the globe followed suit. Healthcare, our primary prerogative in times of pandemic, stood by and watched helplessly as trillions upon trillions of dollars flowed, not to healthcare, but into the hands of an imprisoned public.

The Pandemic Has Come, But the Ripple Effect of “Long-Covid” Remains

The pandemic has come, left its mark and although its impact is still felt as new variants sweep through populations, our fear has passed. We now view the disease as would influenza. It evokes a similar nonchalant response in the public, one of “just another disease we have to cope with” and life moves on. We have moved on. Healthcare hasn’t. Many areas are still beset by Covid outbreaks and now a gloomy shadow of another kind looms on the horizon. The long term impacts of Covid, so called “long Covid”, affecting millions and placing further burden on an already creaking healthcare infrastructure.

The Real Legacy of Covid

Perhaps the real legacy of Covid will not be that of the first truly global pandemic in living memory. Perhaps its true place in history will be as the trumpet call that heralded the beginning of the end of healthcare in modern American society. An opportunity missed to reinvigorate an industry with chronic shortcomings, to prepare it to meet the challenges of a new century. An industry desperately starved of investment and facing massive challenges in delivering care to those most in need.

Now, as the WHO braces itself for a possible new global threat from the Monkeypox virus, cases having doubled in the last two weeks, American healthcare finds itself poorly placed to respond. They are still struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of dealing with Covid, their resources, both human and mechanical, drained and supply chain issues still prevail.

In short, a perfect storm awaits. One we have engineered and enabled with poor choices and little foresight. Mark my words, should we be headed for another pandemic on the back of Covid, few will pay heed to the plight of their one true ally. Healthcare.

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