The Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses Condemns Violence Against Nurses and Healthcare Providers
Violence against nurses and other healthcare providers must stop!
This week, three nurses have been killed while working to protect and care for patients. This increasing occurrence of violence against nurses and other healthcare providers must stop. Healthcare providers spend their careers caring for individuals. They deserve to do so in an environment safe from violence.
On October 18, 2022, mental health nurse practitioner June Onkundi was killed by a patient while working. On October 22, 2022, two nurses at Methodist Dallas Medical Center were killed while working. AMSN offers its deepest condolences to the families, friends and colleagues impacted by these tragic crimes.
AMSN has been advocating for protection for nurses and healthcare providers and it was a key topic in AMSN’s June Fly-In Day with legislators in D.C. Specifically, AMSN asked legislators to pass the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Services Workers Act. Details on this legislation can be found below, and AMSN members can contact their legislators to request their support of this bill here.
The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act
Nurses and health care practitioners are among the professions with the highest rates of workplace violence. In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 73% of all nonfatal workplace incidents due to violence were among health care workers. The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act requires the Department of Labor (DOL) to address workplace violence in the health care, social service, and other sectors. Specifically, the Agency must issue an interim occupational safety and health standard that requires certain employers to take actions to protect workers and other personnel from workplace violence.
The legislation was introduced by Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT-2) on February 22, 2021. The House of Representatives passed the bill in April 2021. The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) on May 11, 2022. The legislation would protect health care workers by:
- Compelling the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a violence prevention standard that requires certain health care and social service employers to develop and implement a violence prevention plan that specifically and comprehensively addresses the conditions and hazards of each workplace or unit.
- Requiring employers to investigate any incident of workplace violence, risk, or hazard and provide training and education to employees who may have been impacted.
- Defining “workplace violence” as “the threat, or use of, physical force against an employee that results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, injury, psychological trauma, or stress” and defining the “threat of violence” as “fear for one’s safety because there is a reasonable possibility an individual might be physically injured.”