Do you feel safe at work?

[Nurse4babies]

In a Florida hospital today, a man armed with a gun shot and killed a patient and a nurse. There is no indication that he knew either one of his victims. Hospital security (unarmed) arrived and was able to restrain him after he was done shooting.

My question to you all is, how safe do you feel at work on any given day? Over the course of my 20+ years, I've been verbally accosted, physically assaulted and even had a gun pulled on me. I've had armed bounty hunters come to the unit to find fugitive parents as well as gang members looking for the children of another gang member. Hospitals, by and large, don't screen their visitors for weapons. And during the daylight hours, visitors often come and go without even so much as a cursory glance over by security.

Have you ever been in physical danger at work? Was the response adequate? What would you change if you had the ability?

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Back in the day (before 'patient satisfaction') one entered the hospital doors with the name and room number of who one wanted to visit - or one was turned away. Persons without legitimate reasons to be on premises should be escorted out.

Random people don't get the surveys. Why are they concerned about patient satisfaction regarding removing random people who aren't supposed to be there?

[elkpark]

I don't feel any less safe at work than I do out in public generally. As someone else commented already, I feel reasonably safe at work, but that's not the same as thinking nothing bad could happen.

[Luvinmylife70]

I feel safe. More than safe. I work in a State non corrections facility whose department was targeted by an active gunman within the last year. However, this took place at a Regional Center. I can tell you without doubt that same week of the occurrence which happened 600 miles from my facility, we had a scare with a suspicious vehicle full of weapons parked on a side street. We were immediately placed on lockdown. At the time, we thought security was making a big deal of what we thought was probably a hunter who forgot to properly stow his rifle. We were silenced when the Regional Center was shot up at the other end of the state. I have to say, my facility trains for that sort of thing, and though we joked about it in the past, we were ready before the incident occurred. I cannot speak for the regional center. I know we have mandatory yearly training for every member of our staff on what to do if we have an active shooter.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

We just had a bomb detonated outside my work so theres that going for us.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

I'm just not a worrier, so I do feel safe unless I have a reason to feel otherwise, i.e. someone standing over me shouting in my face and making very violent gestures towards me.

Worrying about being "safe" seems like a total waste of my time. People have been killed running marathons, going to a movie theater, on vacation in Paris, at work, on the way to work, and anywhere else they may happen to be at the time. Nowhere is much safer than anywhere else, sounds like, so IMO there is no point in worrying about being safe. If someone is determined enough to kill you, they are probably going to succeed despite whatever precautions are put into place, so I just don't waste my time and energy thinking about it.

[AceOfHearts<3]

I feel comfortable at work. I work at a large facility about 75 miles away from one of the large and major east coast cities. It's not rural like out west, but it's "rural" for where I live. We have security that is armed with guns and has been for years. When I started the head of security spoke at orientation and stated they are getting more and more enquiries about armed guards and how things work for us from other hospitals looking to do the same. We have a large employee parking garage with a secured inside bridge to cross the street from the hospital to the garage. There is a guard station right by the elevators and staircase of the parking garage that always has a guard. I was also told security runs drills, so the response time to an emergency anywhere in the hospital is very short During the day our entrances all have greeters and at night the only open entrance is the ED. You have to have a badge to get past it into the main hospital. If somebody wants to visit after a certain time the patient's nurse is called for approval before the visitor is allowed up. I don't work in the ED, so I can't speak for those nurses in my hospital, but as a floor nurse I feel comfortable.

Now, while I was in school, and commuting all over that large nearby city, I did not feel safe at times getting to the facilities I was at (sometimes driving other times using the train and walking). I have pepper spray in my car and some on my key chain for emergencies- I once thought I was going to get caught up in a large cat fight at the trainstation between high schoolers and that really scared me.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Random people don't get the surveys. Why are they concerned about patient satisfaction regarding removing random people who aren't supposed to be there?

Because these random folks are probably friends of the patient or their legitimate visitors. If you remove them, the patient and their legitimate visitors complain.

[RiskManager]

Speaking as the person who buys the Liability Insurance for the organization, the interesting thing about armed security is that your liability insurance costs go up significantly. A lot of facilities decide against armed security for this reason.

[mmccool719]

I recently started working at an inner city hospital that happens to also be very gang ridden. They recently opened a trauma center and I happen to work there very regularly. This morning, someone stood outside and shot a bullet towards our windows. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But just to think if I or one of my co-workers had been standing in that room sent chills down my spine. On another note, I find security at many of these hospitals parking garages to be awful. I am always fearful of getting jumped when I go to my car and it's not always easy to find a "buddy" to leave with.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

Yes. I was up in Thomasville, Ga. when I saw a report about this on the local Hee-Haw news station. It happened in Titusville, Fl. Not much changes down through the years. For some reason hospital administration would rather project the illusion of safety for PR purposes rather than ever let on that hospitals have been, are and will continue to be filled with and visted by unpredictable and dangerous individuals.

I have often wondered, but not for long, why some hospitals take the threat to their employees seriously while others live the dream. Maybe it's because the CEO of the this "soft" security hospital is at home at night snuggling under the comforter with the air turned up. You know, out of sight, out of mind.

But they say cops have a dangerous job. So doesn't it logically follow and seriously beg the question as to how one 90 pound nurse can be asked to take care of one 280 pound PCP overdosed patient in an ED after being hog-tied with leathers and hand-cuffed by six burly boys in blue in the field and then layed on your doorstep with a "call us when he's better."

[AlwaysLearning247, BSN]

I do feel safe for the most part. I always get nervous thinking that a patient's family member will come in and hurt someone though. I've had a family member come up to me and say something along the lines of "you're the first nurse to do something, I have family members that consists of MDs and nurses who work at (inner city hospital) that want to come and kick (my hospitals) doctors and nurses butts for not getting an order for zofran for the patient in a timely manner." I think that is an inappropriate thing to say. Some family members are too extreme. I'm not scared of the patients, even the crazy ones. It's the overprotective family members who blame everything on the nurses and doctors!

[gonzo1, ASN, RN]

I don't feel safe anywhere anymore, but I usually don't care. I've worked in hospitals with great security and some with none.