Nurses Becoming Human Punching Bags!

Nursing serious wounds
By Jessica Fargen

Monday, June 11, 2007 - Updated: 06:41 AM EST

Nurses are increasingly becoming "human punching bags" at the hands of unruly patients, experts say, prompting prosecutors, police and frontline caregivers to question security inside local hospitals.
"I was hysterical. I was petrified for my life," recalled Liz Nolan, a cardiothoracic nurse at Boston Medical Center, who filed a police report in March after a patient's son threatened to assault her and "kick her (expletive.)""If anything ever happened again, I would call 911."
More than a dozen nurses interviewed over the past two weeks say understaffing, lax security and the increased number of violent patients puts them in danger.
Karen Coughlin, a Taunton State Hospital nurse, found a patient with a harmonica fashioned into a knife. A young South Shore ER nurse was too afraid to speak on the record out of fear the patient who attacked her would retaliate. Still another state hospital nurse and breast cancer survivor had her breast implant dislodged when a patient kicked her last year.
"The level of violence is definitely on the rise," said Judith Shindul-Rothschild, a nurse and professor at Boston College's School of Nursing. "Getting that license does not have in small print that you are a human punching bag."
Fifty-percent of nurses reported being punched at least once in the previous two years, according to a 2004 Massachusetts Nurses Association survey, and they believe the numbers are going up.
To combat that, several recent initiatives have given the issue new attention:
Next week, lawmakers hear testimony on a bill that would require all hospitals to do an annual violence risk assessment.
Norfolk District Attorney William Keating just issued a 47-page report on health care violence, calling the amount of nurse abuse "astounding."
A new bill would expand a law that makes it a crime to assault an ambulance driver or EMT to include nurses.
Norwood Police Chief Bartley King, who worked on the Keating project, said the attacks inside hospitals are underreported.
"I would like to see a lot more emphasis placed on the need for nurses to report these incidents not just to the hospital, but to the police," he said.
Karen Nelson, senior vice president of clinical affairs at the Massachusetts Hospital Association, said the answer is not just more staffing or more security.
"Workplace violence has increased, but not because of staffing issues," said Nelson, a nurse. "The solutions to it lie in analyzing each work site."
She said hospitals have stepped up security procedures and are training staff to recognize a potentially violent situation and de-escalate it.
At BMC, where Nolan said she was threatened, staff now have Code Green, a panic system that alerts hospital authorities to a potentially violent situation so they can summon outside help, said spokesman David Goldberg. He said he couldn't comment on Nolan's case.
Michelle Whitaker, 42, a Brockton Hospital psychiatric nurse, said she's twice been assaulted by patients, most recently in 2005, when a patient punched her and tried to choke her. After 10 years on the job, she resigned last week.
"It's taking a toll on me emotionally. I don't feel like I can safely give 100 percent or 110 percent of myself to my patients any longer because I feel like I have to look over my back," she said.
A Brockton Hospital spokesman said he couldn't comment on Whitaker's case.
Christine Pontus, associate director of health and safety at the nurse's union, which is backing a staffing bill this year, said nurses still face the hurdle of changing some patients' attitudes about nurses.
"The patient pushes the envelope with the nurse," she said. "They wouldn't do it as easily with someone in power, but with a caretaker, they just take the liberty."

Boston Herald