Another Epidemic

Doctors and nurses have been called heroes for their work in the battle agains COVID-19. But many of them don’t feel like heroes.Take Erin McIntosh, a nurse in Riverside, California: “I don’t particularly like that term—but we’re definitely not treated as such.”

While the covid epidemics has been attributed to the high-stress level, burnout and depression faced by nurses and doctors on the front-line, there’s something else going on in the health care world that is receiving much less attention.

It’s violence against health care employees, and it’s considered an under reported problem. You might be shocked, as I was, to learn that violent altercations are so common that most employees in the field consider them to be simply part of the job. Statistically, three quarters of thenearly 25,000 annual workplace assaults occur in healthcare settings, but only 30% of nurses and 26% of emergency department physicians reporting incidents of violence, according to one study. 

I first learned about this issue when I was approached by the director of public safety at a regional hospital in a medium-sized city in Georgia. He called the problem an epidemic in health care and is developing a workplace violence prevention program and wants to write a book about it. He mentioned that with everything else going on in the health care field, this problem has been overlooked. He’s right about that. I searched on line for articles on the subject, but the only ones I found were a couple of health journal reports on the subject.

The synchronicity here is that I happen to know the security director of another regional hospital, this one in central Texas. Some of you who have read this blog for awhile might be familiar with the name, Wesley Meeks. I’ve written about his experiences over the years as someone capable of out-of-body travel—experiences ranging from a somewhat controversial out-of-body experience at a topless bar to his cosmic travels far beyond Earth and into other dimensions, including a visit to the Akashic records.

So I contacted Wes and asked for his opinion on violence to health care workers. Wes, who is a former police officer, quickly responded and agreed that it is an epidemic and that it’s a concern not only to him but to his wife, a nurse who works the third shift.

“Assaults against healthcare workers are very common and have been acknowledged as An ‘epidemic’ and a nationwide issue for the past couple of years,” Wes wrote. “Doctors, nurses, orderlies, patient care assistants, etc., bear the brunt of these incidents, but also hospital security officers and police officers are frequently assaulted as well.”

He thinks that part of the increase in such reports is because health care workers have become more willing to file police reports rather than to simply shrug off the incidents. That accounts for some of the increase, but not all of it, Wes said.

“This person wanting to write a book about the “epidemic” is correct in that this is a largely unacknowledged problem.  Even at our medium-sized facility, assaults and terroristic threats occur several times per month.   Since we have our own fully accredited police department, employees are more willing to file charges when assaulted than they were when they had to call the city police in years past.”

Wes went on to say that some “for profit” facilities may either discretely or openly discourage employees from filing charges against patients or family members. “But that trend is changing as well, again resulting in stats for assaults increasing.” 

P.S. This was written originally back when the pandemic was ravaging New York and a few other places. Tragic and sad that it’s pertinent now, when the # of new cases exceed 200,000 and deaths are around 2500 a day. It’s pathetic that three states have more than a million cases and hospitals nationwide are reaching or have reached capacity.