Nurse’s Union Says Work Environment ‘Unacceptable’ due to Attacks

Burrillville, RI (WorkersCompensation.com) – A nurse’s union is speaking out about the work environment at a state-run facility, after a violent patient repeatedly attacked staff members.

The allegations came after a nurse was allegedly attacked on Nov. 15 at the Eleanor Slater Hospital’s Zambarano campus. The United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5019 said its members are “extremely frustrated,” after being attacked, and having had a grievance they filed rejected by the Rhode Island Department of Administration last month.

UNAP president Lynn Blais said the patient was transferred to Zambarano after the state closed another hospital, the Regan Building, a separate division of Eleanor Slater Hospitals, for renovations.

Union officials said after the patient arrived in Burrillville, he started assaulting staff members and hurting himself. In its grievance, the union said the patient acted violently, including throwing feces at a nurse, pulling another nurse’s hair and assaulting two staff members. In one incident, the grievance said, the patient left scratches on a nursing assistant’s arm that drew blood.

Blais said nurses are told to go into the patient’s room prepared to be attacked.

“He bites, he scratches, he hits, he punches,” Blais told WPRI. “No one should have to work under those conditions. To tell your staff that you need to be prepared to be attacked and not put the resources in place to prevent those attacks is unacceptable.”

A spokesman for the R.I. Department of Behavioral Health, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, said, “The safety of our patients and staff is the hospital’s utmost priority.”

Edgar said the department has increased the security on the patient’s unit, enhanced staff when working with him and retrained its staff on “safe patient handling.”

“The hospital considers multiple strategies to enhance the safety of its staff on an ongoing basis,” Edgar added.

Blais said the actions weren’t enough. The union said it has filed criminal complaints against the patient.

“Talk doesn’t get us where we need to go,” she said. “We need action.”

The union has also requested the hospital transfer the patient back to the original campus that he came from and even consider discharging him to a homeless shelter. But staff with Eleanor Slater Hospitals said the patients’ medical needs are too much to handle at any other psychiatric hospital in the state.

Blais said the issue is emblematic of the larger issue of violence against healthcare staff at hospitals across the state.

“It happens,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to ensuring the safety of all of our health care workers in the state, in every hospital. We face this every single day.”

Across the country, nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers are under attack.

In Georgia, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office said it has arrested a man for allegedly attacking a nurse at Doctors Hospital in August last week.

Officials said Trey Jones has been charged with punching a nurse in the mouth on Nov. 11. The attack caused the nurse to black out and left the nurse suffering from a concussion as well as a bleeding mouth. The nurse was hospitalized and given a neck brace for his discomfort.

Jones was charged with battery and possession of drugs. Doctors Hospital said it has a zero tolerance policy in regard to violence toward its staff and is working with law enforcement on the case.

In Townshend, Vt., a California man was arrested after he attacked a nurse.

Police in Townshend said they were called to Grace Cottage Hospital on Nov. 20, after a patient attacked a nurse. The nurse was treated for facial injuries and released.

Vermont State Police said Adam Rauch, 22, of San Diego, had fled the hospital after the attack and damaging property at the hospital. With some help from the public, police said they found Rauch and arrested him. He was charged with assault on a protected professional and unlawful mischief.

And in Staten Island, N.Y., a man was charged with assaulting a nurse at Richmond University Medical Center earlier this month.

Officials said Alexander Lopez, of West Brighton, was charged with third-degree assault and second-degree harassment in connection with a Nov. 5 attack. Officials said Lopez punched a female nurse in the face and pulled her hair with both hands as she was trying to insert an intravenous injection into him.

Violence against healthcare workers in on the rise. Those workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Attacks on healthcare workers account for 73 percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to violence, BLS statistics show.

According to a report from the Emergency Nurses Association released this year, more than half of the emergency nurses (53 percent) surveyed in 2023 said they had been attacked or threatened with violence in the past 30 days.

And a report from Press Ganey found that more than two nurses were assaulted every hour in the second quarter of 2022, or roughly 57 assaults per day; 1,739 assaults per month; and 5,217 assaults per quarter. The report, National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators, found that the highest number of assaults occurred in psychiatric units and emergency departments, and that psychiatric units and rehab units have the largest percentage of assaults resulting in moderate to severe injuries.

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