Recently, there has been an increased amount of violence against the nurses in my department. Our hospital was recently acquired by a larger hospital in the area and many policies have changed. Since that time, the number of violent episodes has also changed. I do not work in a big city, level 1 trauma center. We are a smaller community type hospital on the edge of a medium sized city, yet we are experiencing more and more violence than the larger hospitals in the area. Back before the acquisition, we had our own trained security team that did all the watches on psych or potentially dangerous individuals. Now we have contracted security that does not do any watches, and instead we have techs, (many are small or older women) sit on the watches. We were told there would be a police presence in the department, but we have yet to see it. The response from management is less than optimal. We are be encouraged to press charges, but find resistance when the police arrive. Meanwhile, staff is dwindling due to injuries. It is a second degree felony to assault a health care worker. I think management needs to take this more seriously. How do you deal with violence in your EDs? How does management react when someone is assaulted? I think we need to put posters in all the rooms that say it is a felony to assault a nurse. I also think it should be listed exactly what would constitute assault, (such as throwing your water at the nurse). People hesitate to talk back to police officers or to throw empty containers at cops because they know they will be arrested. Maybe we should make the public aware that the same thing could happen if they assault a nurse. Just needed to vent and hopefully hear from others about how they handle this situation.
