Hospital Increases Security, Locks Down ICU after Threats, Online attacks

Oklahoma City, OK (WorkersCompensation.com) – As threats against health care workers increase across the country, one Oklahoma hospital has added 24/7 security and locked down its ICU in response to online threats.   

Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City recently announced that it has filed a restraining order against The Ekklesia Church of Oklahoma, and its pastor Daniel Navejas, after church members protested at the church, blocking the entrance to the emergency room.   

The church members were protesting the hospital’s refusal to up the dosage of an unproven steroid to one of the church’s members who was in the ICU there.   

Church member Bob Barth was admitted to the hospital in January with COVID-19. Barth, who was unvaccinated, was later transferred to the ICU and placed on a ventilator. Barth’s wife requested that the hospital treat her husband with a steroid, budesonide. The treatment is touted by Dr. Richard Bartlett of Odessa, Texas as a “silver bullet” cure for COVID-19.   

When hospital officials refused, Barth’s wife engaged in “a desperate crusade” to “override the medical judgement of Mr. Barth’s treating health care professionals in Mercy’s ICU,” the hospital said in court documents. Hospital officials said she “demanded that providers increase Mr. Barth’s Budesonide dosage from 1 mg every 12 hours to 1 mg every 4 hours.”  

During Mrs. Barth’s campaign, Navejas posted messages on the church’s Facebook page decrying the hospital.   

“One of the men in my church is being held hostage and forced to receive Fauci's death protocol and REFUSES the family's request to use Dr. Bartlett’s BUDESONIDE Protocol which has saved thousands worldwide,” Navejas said in one post.   

“Bob is in Mercy hospital fighting for his life! Why? Because this evil Marxist control death camp refuses to give him the treatment he needs to help him,” he said in another.   

While hospital staff did increase the dosage on Jan. 28, Barth’s condition continued to deteriorate and he died on Feb. 10.   

It was then that Navejas started a campaign against the hospital and one of Barth’s doctors, naming one of Barth’s doctors and calling them a “murderer” and “a worthless doctor and you should be ran (SIC) out of town.” One commentor on the post included the doctor’s address.   

Mercy said the doctor and their family members were afraid for their lives. The hospital filed papers to get a restraining order against the church and Navejas, and took extra steps to strengthen security.   

“The ICU is on lockdown until further notice,” the hospital said in a letter to its staff. “Security will be posted at the ER entrance 24/7 and is continuously rounding throughout the hospital.”  

The hospital said it was doing what was necessary to protect its staff.   

“There have been many baseless allegations and attacks online this past week about our hospital and co-workers. We have done our absolute best to respond with dignity and respect toward people with a difference of opinion, but we must defend our co-workers,” the hospital said in a statement. “It’s important that you know every one of the claims made against our hospital and co-workers are categorically untrue. Here’s what you can be absolutely certain of: There is no such thing as a Fauci protocol; there are no government vouchers for using certain medications or treatments for our patients with COVID-19; we do not make money from the heartbreaking deaths of our patients; our co-workers are not murderers.”  

An Oklahoma County judge granted the hospital a temporary injunction against Navejas, and ordered him to remove those posts and not post anything similar until a final ruling is handed down.   

The hospital’s actions come at a time when health care workers across the country are facing more violent and more frequent attacks.   

Last year in Boston, Mass., Massachusetts General Hospital said 2 to 3 of its nurses are assaulted every day. The incidents, the hospital said, range from a shove or a kick to verbal harassment and even threats by patients. And that estimate, officials said, is almost certainly an undercount.   

“We believe that the reporting is lower than what the reality is,” said Colleen Snydeman, executive director for quality and safety in nursing and patient care at MGH. The hospital started collecting data on staff assaults in 2019, she said. “It’s been something that we've been very concerned about. Everyone is — the entire hospital.”  

In a survey of about 5,000 register nurses by the National Nurses United, nearly one-third (31 percent) said they faced an increase in workplace violence. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018 health care workers accounted for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses.   

Earlier this year, in Wilmington, North Carolina, a man was charged with attempted murder after he attacked two employees of the New Hanover Regional Medical Center.   

Officials said Rothwell Jacob Simmons, 24, was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of assault by strangulation.   

Police reports indicated that Simmons threw the first victim onto the ground, choking her until she lost consciousness. He then tried to snap the second victim’s neck, leaving her with neck injuries and contusions.   

“Earlier this week, our hospital experienced something that tragically is happening in hospitals across the country at unprecedented rates – acts of violence directed toward health care workers,” Shelbourn Stevens, president of New Hanover Regional said in a statement, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. “Two of our team members were attacked and injured inside the emergency department. Our hearts and prayers go out to them and their families.”   

In Branson, Missouri, officials at the Cox Medical Center installed a panic button system on the badges of nurses and other staff after hospital officials noticed a jump in assaults and injuries related to assaults.   

In 2020, the hospital recorded 123 attacks against hospital staff resulting in 78 injuries, up from 40 attacks in 2019 that resulted in 17 injuries.   

"That kind of raised a red flag that we need to get some extra protection in place," Brandei Clifton, the hospital's communications manager, told NPR. "Until these buttons are implemented, right now, a nurse either has to call security on her phone or scream for help, and so this is an extra easy way they can get immediate response."  

In January of this year, Utah legislators introduced legislation that would expand protections for health care workers. The bill, HB 32, would enhance the penalties for assaults against nurses and doctors.   

Specifically, the legislation introduced by state Rep. Robert Spendlove, R-Sandy, would make it a class A misdemeanor to assault or threaten violence against an owner, employee or contractor of a health care facility working in the scope of their job. The assault causes serious bodily injury, the charge would increase to a third-degree felony charge. Currently, Utah state law those penalties already apply to staff in emergency rooms, but the new legislation would expand to all workers, including those in private practice.  

 “We’ve got to do everything we can to recognize these heroes ... and give them not only financial support, but also moral and legal support,” Spendlove said.