How do we COMBAT work place violence???

Published Apr 11, 2001

42 Posts

What should we do???

I read a post that a nurse was killed on the job by a patient at a psychiatric facility. I feel deeply sorry for this nurse and everyone who was involved. Some people do not realize how violent psychiatric facilities can be. Many times if you compare a psychiatric facility with a prison, you will see that the violence levels and injuries on staff and other patients happen more often at psychiatric facilities. To be honest with you, I'm not surprised that this has happened. Why? Because I have worked in psyche for many years, and dangerous things happen often....especially when there is insuffient amount of staff. In addition, patients have less restrictions than people believe they would in a psychiatric facility. Too often people are too concerned about the so called "patients' rights" issue and disregard the rights of staff. Staff are placed in very dangerous situations and very little is done about it. Administration ignors these problems and they continue to cut our staff and place us and the patients in unsafe situations.....and only to save a buck.

How do we combat this problem to prevent future work place violence???

Does anyone out there have any similar experiences??? If so, was it resolved???