Safety of nurses

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I am looking for some feedback about safety issues related to nursing. I work at the VA and have noticed over the years that patients are getting more violent. Our VA bend over back wards to give the best care and enable our veterans to be active in their own care. They are very demanding and when they are not getting want they want ie certain consults or referrals that are medically not necessary, they dont think twice to go off on the nurse, provider etc. or even make threats. All we can do as staff is file incident report which really does not get followed up on. If this behavior would happen while active duty or in a civilian hospital they would get arrested or not be treated. I cant make miracles happen and patients need to be compliant because not all their problems can be solved with a magic pill. Often and unnecessary staff is treated like crap and I think our safety is at play. Does anyone else experience this at their workplace?

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

I see it every day in our facilities and clinics. Is your VA facility too small to have the VA Police? I have some friends who work at the Seattle VA hospital and the VA Police are a very visible presence there. Not too sound too much like a geezer, but I think the problem has gotten worse in recent years, compared to when I started 35 years ago.

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Thanks for your response, maybe this is the new normal, or maybe I am to old, lol. yes it had gotten worse over the years and we do have police but they really don't arrest anyone. Patients have more right then the staff and I think that is the main reason that we can't keep good proactive medical staff.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Pts acting badly happens in civilian hospitals too...it's called the customer service model, aka HCAHPS & value-based purchasing.

I think that culturally, we as a culture are just becoming more selfish, are expecting instant gratification, and are blurred to the more traditional values that in the past would keep people from behaving the way that they are like respect for others.

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