Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash
Over the course of the pandemic, nurses have been experiencing unprecedented levels of violence compared to before the start of the pandemic.
“The nurses are the ones who are taking the abuse,” says Angela Preocanin, VP of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. “Being beat up is normal. There’s always been violence in healthcare but this is just outrageous.”
“I’ve been a nurse for 32 years and I have never experienced this much violence,” she says.
Hospital executives have implemented different programs of de-escalation in an effort to curtail the abuse their workers face at the hands of angry patients. Tactics like gentle persuasion programs and crisis prevention/intervention programs.
“Those are even by the wayside. We just don’t have time to take the courses because we’re so short staffed,” she says.
It’s estimated that Ontario has a shortage of about 22,000 nurses, though she believes that number could now be as high as 30,000.
Angela Preocanin, VP of ONA. Credit: Mike Lacasse/ XFM News (Zoom screengrab).
Other options proposed by ONA have included metal detectors at the front gate to help secure the hospital against what happened on May 6 where a patient armed with a hammer and a knife attacked a healthcare worker at Victoria Hospital.
“You know what the hospitals are telling them [the nurses]? We’re not a prison, we’re a hospital. So, they don’t even value our safety to have prevention,” she says.
Hospitals do have security but often their hands are tied. Not only do they not have the sort of wide reaching powers that a police officer has to deal with violent patients, they also lack the training and it puts them at risk.
The federal government has implemented a change to the Criminal Code that went into effect this year which made sentencing harsher towards people who would assault and/or intimidate healthcare workers.
“It’s a great first step but will they ever actually implement it? Will it ever actually come to fruition?” says Preocanin.
“We have 1000 accepted WSIB loss claims for workplace violence and that’s an increase, 21%, since 2016. Healthcare workers have missed more than 266 years, equivalent, […] because of workplace violence. WSIB has paid out more than $24 million in benefits because of workplace violence. And that’s just from 2020. We don’t even know ’21 yet.”
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