Unfortunately, it is quite common in the nursing profession to have had been assaulted one way or another by a patient at some point in your career.
For some reason, it is tolerated in the nursing profession and is just accepted as "part of the job"? Police do not tolerate this type of abuse, nor do most professions, why is it tolerated in the nursing profession?
Do to recent stories of fatal violence in hospitals, I wanted to poll all of you AN'ers and see what kind of percentage of nurses from all specialties have had to deal with violence in some fashion.
I think we all would like to see policies change to have a safer work environments, please share this poll with your nursing friends, Facebook etc.... Thanks
All the time. Working as a medic it was alot of drunk and junkies (yeah Narcan can **** pts off...) And now I am a nurse in LTC and work with dementia pts, almost everyday it is some type of kicking or biting. And verbal abuse? It would be the end of nursing when I am not verbally abused almost every day. In fact last night we had to put a pt in 4 point restraints (not just our safety but her own as well) :argue:
Yep yep yep and yep. All from demented patients Although I'm not a nurse I've been pinched, slapped, kissed, butt pinched, punched, spit on etc etc. Doesn't bother me because I know that the people that did it didn't know what they were doing. If an alert and oriented person did it that would be another story. I usually combat verbal abuse from my alert patients with kindness. I have really thck skin now and I just try to remember that I'm here to care do people and if they choose to be a dick well maybe I can show them some compassion and make them sorry for being so rude. Usually works. I usually get an apology.
One of our respiratory techs at my hospital was telling me a story the other day about a trach pt. who was AAOx3 and during a suctioning session, the pt. coughed (which is usally to be expected) but this particular guy had a tendency to have copious amounts of secretions that were let loose during suctioning and in many instances, these secretions had a history of becoming airborne, in any light, the pt. purposely aimed at the RT while she was pulling back the suction catheter and in close proximity to the pt. and a huge glob of gunk flew out and landed on the RT's face/eyes...the kicker to the story is that this was an HIV-positive pt.!!!
One of our respiratory techs at my hospital was telling me a story the other day about a trach pt. who was AAOx3 and during a suctioning session, the pt. coughed (which is usally to be expected) but this particular guy had a tendency to have copious amounts of secretions that were let loose during suctioning and in many instances, these secretions had a history of becoming airborne, in any light, the pt. purposely aimed at the RT while she was pulling back the suction catheter and in close proximity to the pt. and a huge glob of gunk flew out and landed on the RT's face/eyes...the kicker to the story is that this was an HIV-positive pt.!!!
Holy cow that is scary. I work mainly w t/v PTs and I have been slimed inadvertently many a time. It's part of the job.. But purposely? Couldn't imagine... I've had some tough PTs in TBI units that did messed up things and made off comments but never that...
Thank you for posting and I could not agree more. Violence against health care workers should employ a zero tolerance policy with consequences. I am a RN for over 20 years in acute care and three years from retirement, worked in serial areas of nursing. Yes, I have been abused in almost every way, violence included and I have to agree that 90% is axis II behavior. As a staff we take an annual review of safety training which teaches us how to de-escalate a potentially violent situation all the way to a physical take down of a patient. Still, situations can occur that spiral out of control. 98% of patients are a pleasure to work with and it's that 2% that can cause you injury.
One piece of advice I have is to *ALWAYS PRESS CHARGES* if you are physically assaulted or seriously threatened. This has been proven to lower overall incidents of injuries against health care workers.
Poi Dog
1,134 Posts
Been called a "worthless pig", "pos", "snotty bi!ch". This week had a slipper thrown at me. The nice sweet residents make up for the mean ones though.