Attacks on healthcare workers, particularly nurses in emergency departments, have increased as the pandemic continues, hospital officials reported this week.
At CoxHealth's hospitals in Springfield, Mo., nurses said although they are subjected to verbal abuse at least daily, the number of physical altercations has increased, especially over the last year.
"It's terrifying," nurse Natalie Higgins told KY3 of the fear she faces doing her job. "You want to go home to your family, and you'd think as a nurse you don't have to worry about that. But we do have to worry about that every day we come in."
While Higgins had become accustomed to verbal assault at work, facing a physical assault on the job traumatized her.
"The first time I got verbally attacked by a patient, it was like, 'Oh my gosh, I expected it,' [just] not to the extent we've see it every day," she explained. "The first physical [assault] — like the first time someone lunges at you — even still today, when they lunge at you — it's terrifying."
A 2016 study on workplace violence in the healthcare industry — published in the New England Journal of Medicine — found emergency department nurses reported the most verbal and physical assault incidents.
Researchers said 100% of ER nurses reported being verbally assaulted, while 82% reported being physically attacked. The study noted that nursing home workers are also at high risk for assault, with more than half admitting they were assaulted in some manner at least weekly. In addition, more than 50% said they had been abused in some form by patients every week.
"Since rates of assault correlate with patient contact time, nurses and nursing aides are victimized at the highest rates," the study found.
Nurses said the pandemic has only worsened things, especially with longer-than-ever wait times in emergency rooms.
For Missouri nurses, a new Missouri law affords the protection of anonymously pressing charges against a violent patient, KY3 reported.
The issue of patients attacking nurses and aides is so rampant at CoxHealth, the hospital equipped the staff's badges with "panic buttons." If pressed, the system notifies security and other emergency department staff along with sending their exact location. The hospital's CEO tweeted in reference to a "recent incident," but did not elaborate.
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