Healthcare Workers Faced Deadly Attacks in 2022

Milwaukee, WI (WorkersCompensation.com) – After a year where 2 healthcare workers on average were attacked every hour, law makers are pushing legislation that would protect them from future attacks. 

According to a September report in Press Ganey’s National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators, over a three month period from April to June in 2022, an equivalent of 5,217 healthcare workers experienced assaults at 483 facilities. The report found that on average 57 healthcare workers were attacked every day on average, or about two an hour nationwide. 

And the violence against healthcare workers hasn’t stopped. 

On Dec. 15, Milwaukee nurse Joni Acala shared the story of her attack with WTMJ. Acala said she was walking down a hallway past a patient’s room when the patient grabbed her from behind. The patient grabbed her by her hair and punched her in the back of the head several times, she said.

The attack, which lasted for nearly a minute left her with broken fingers, chunks of her hair ripped out and damage to her jaw where the patient kicked her. Acala said it took five men to get the patient who did not want to leave the emergency room off of her. 

"It was like a street brawl that you would see in a movie," she said.

According to a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians, emergency departments may get hit hardest by violence against healthcare workers. More than eight in 10 of the emergency physicians survey said they believe the rate of violence incidents in emergency departments has increased, with nearly half (45 percent) saying it has greatly increased over the past five years. 

“Violence in the emergency department continues to threaten and harm emergency physicians and patients,” says Chris Kang, MD, FACEP, FAWM, president-elect of ACEP. “Over the past five years, emergency physicians have witnessed and experienced a steady increase in assaults made worse by the pandemic. This report underscores how attacks on emergency physicians, care teams, and staff are rampant and must be addressed.”

The 2022 survey found that two-thirds of emergency physicians reported being assaulted in 2021, while more than one-third reported being assaulted more than once. 

Recent examples are disturbing, officials said. In October, a healthcare worker at a treatment center in Durham, N.C. was stabbed to death by a patient she was treating. In Dallas, two healthcare workers were shot and killed at the Methodist Dallas Medical Center after a man visiting his girlfriend in the maternity ward pulled a gun on them. In September, a nurse in Panorama City, California’s Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City was stabbed when a man attacked him as the nurse was arriving for work. And in June, at the Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a patient entered his physician’s office and opened fire, killing his surgeon and three other people, including another physician and a patient. The gunman blamed the surgeon for his pain following a recent procedure. 

Despite the increase in attacks, the response from lawmakers has been varied. While about 40 states have legislation on the books protecting healthcare workers, the American Nurses Association said, those laws can vary. Some states have stiff penalties, while others offer little protection. Eight states require employers to provide workplace violence prevention programs. 

Four states, Oregon, Utah, Michigan and Maryland, considered legislation to protect healthcare workers this year. In Oregon, House Bill 4142 that would have made physically injuring a healthcare provider at work a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $125,000 fine, languished on the desk of Senate President Peter Courtney, who didn’t assign the bill to committee, so it died due to lack of action. In Utah passed House Bill 32 in March. That bill enhances the penalties for assaulting or threatening to assault healthcare facility workers. 

In Michigan, two bill were introduced – House Bill 5682 and House Bill 5084. HB 5682 enhanced penalties for attacks on emergency room workers, and HB 5084 allows healthcare facilities to post signs about the punishments for assaulting an emergency room worker. HB 5682 was passed by the House and sent to the Committee on Government Operations, while no action was taken on House Bill 5084. 

Maryland’s House Bill 0267 would have made it illegal to threaten a public health official, but that bill also stalled in committee. 

Congress has also moved to act, but little has been accomplished there. 

In May, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., re-introduced the Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act that would require the U.S. Department of Labor to address the violence by issuing an interim occupational safety and health standard that would require employers to take action to protect workers from violence. Similar legislation introduced in the House by U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., was passed in April 2021.  

"As part of the plan, employers would be required to work with employees to identify and correct hazards, develop systems for reporting threats of violence and injuries, provide training for workers and management, and protect workers from retaliation for reporting workplace violence incidents," Fred Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said during an online press conference about the legislation in May.

 Baldwin’s bill was read twice and forwarded to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 

And in June, U.S. Reps. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., and Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., introduced legislation that would protect healthcare workers much like recently passed legislation protects flight crews and flight attendants. The legislation, Safety From Violence for Healthcare Employees (SAVE) Act would impose penalties on individuals who knowingly and intentionally assault or intimidate hospital employees, while providing protections for the mentally incapacitated.  

The bill also calls for appropriating funds to allow hospitals to develop strategies to reduce workplace violence that are tailored to each department’s needs. The money could be used for everything from training hospital personnel in de-escalation techniques to creating “safe patient and staff rooms” to installing metal detectors or panic buttons.  

“As a practicing physician for more than 15 years, I know just how critical to patient care it is that we work to ensure that hospitals are safe environments,” Bucshon said in a statement. “Unfortunately, over the past few years, there have been increased incidences of violence taking place at our hospitals. These rising levels of violence negatively impact the ability of our nation’s physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals – who are currently experiencing record levels of stress and burnout – to provide quality care for their patients.” 

The bill is endorsed by the American Hospital Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP), the Indiana Hospital Association (IHA), and the Indiana Organization for Nursing Leadership (IONL).  

However, while experts say the Bucshon’s bill has the greatest likelihood of passing, it appears to have stalled in the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security in November. 

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