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?

[Healthywealthy]

In my honest opinion I do believe that the hospital security need to be alot better. Most of the hospital security officers are really really good people. BUT the modern criminals are much more covert, so security meansures need to update to adjust to the modern day criminal. So screen everyone for guns and weapons and

Zero tolerance and immediate handcuffs from attacks. You will see crime rates go down in hospitals.THERE IS NO REASON FOR NURSES GETTING ATTACKS OR VERBALLY ASSAULTED UNLESS THE NURSE IS THE ONE HARMING.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

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.

Right...but in their case, they would have a legit reason to be there. I'm not talking about kicking out Joe, whose mother just suffered an MI and wants to visit. I'm talking about people who either admit they're just inside to get warm, or claim to have a friend in the hospital but doesn't know his name, or people who security/nursing management/staff RNs have agreed cannot be in the building.

[Callisonanne]

Our hospital police are sworn officers and carry weapons. I work in psych so they cannot bring a weapon into our section unless there is an active shooter. I feel very safe. Metal detectors don't even help as we had a stabbing at our hospital (on the medical side) with a ceramic knife. Things will always happen but in general I feel safe. We wear trackers with panic buttons that if activated tell the police where we are in the building and track our movement. I wish more hospitals staffed police rather than security officers. I respect both but sometimes you need a true officer.

[RobtheORNurse]

I have always felt safe, that being said, I have been stabbed by a patient on the psych floor when I worked there. The key thinfg is to be aware of your surroundings at all times, not just at work. Train to react in a given situation, shooter, fire, bomb etc. That training will kick in when needed.

[suga_junkie, BSN, RN]

I feel safe but I live in Canada.

Yup, I feel safe but I live in Australia. We have almost no gun crime and zero mass shootings since gun control laws were changed in 1996. Obviously we still get intoxicated or mentally ill people throwing punches etc but nothing close to the gun or knife crime described by previous posters.

[WinterLilac]

When I hold a dinner party (for the first time in my life) YOU are my first choice guest.

[katdan1026]

Before I was a nurse, I was working as a CNA on a step down unit night shift, just me and an RN. I walk into a room to take vitals of a guy not realizing he had gone into DT's and was psychotic. He pulls out a knife and start yelling "take out this thing right now" pointing to his IV. I fall back on the "I'm just a CNA" excuse and skedaddle out of there quick. Called a code take-down before I was 3 steps out of the room.

A few years later as a nurse, I'm doing in-patient care for a sweet, older lady. She was very near the end and decided to end all treatments herself. Her mind was still completely intact and sound, she asked for and signed her own DNR, called her kids to her bedside to say good bye and explained to them why she was ready to let go. We made her comfortable and everyone was sad but o.k. with it until.....she took her last breath. Then one her 6 kids marched out of the room picked up my charge nurse by the neck and screamed in her face " you killed my mama. If she dies you die" Even the other adult kids couldn't get their brother under control. He went to jail and destroyed the peaceful death his mother wanted to leave for her kids.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

I've worked in corrections & I have to say I felt the safest there than any time I worked out in public.

Worked in a jail once and it gave me the clautrophobic feeling of being trapped like a rat. I believe it takes a special kind of person to work in an envronment like that and like it. Wasn't for me. Especially when one prisoner broke the jaw of two different fellow prisoners on two different levels of security (regular and high) in the same 8 hr shift. I lasted 3 weeks and was glad to go home on work release so to speak.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

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.

Boy is this an eye opener even for the ever droll "Buyer beware!" It's always about follow the money much to my former resistance to this mono-dimentional concept of the way things actually work.

[bmryan06]

I used to work in a crazy busy level one trauma emergency room. I felt unsafe on a regular basis. Towards the end of time there, I was pregnant. I had drunk or psychiatric patients swing at me and my belly multiple times. I had family members upset about wait times or such and yell and scream at me. That actually bothered me more. Because they are so concerned with customer service, my supervisors would comply and do what they wanted, never mentioning the verbal harassment they put on me, regardless if my pregnancy.

I have now had my baby and work in a much calmer ambulatory surgery. I have yet to ever feel unsafe.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

Worked in a jail once and it gave me the clautrophobic feeling of being trapped like a rat. I believe it takes a special kind of person to work in an envronment like that and like it. Wasn't for me. Especially when one prisoner broke the jaw of two different fellow prisoners on two different levels of security (regular and high) in the same 8 hr shift. I lasted 3 weeks and was glad to go home on work release so to speak.

Inmates might assault each other but I was never afraid for my safety when I worked in corrections. I can't say the same when I worked PDN or LTC.