Emergency Department - Violence Against Health Care Workers

Violence Against Health Care Workers

According to a survey at an urban inner-city tertiary care centre in Vancouver, 57% of health care workers were physically assaulted in 1996. 73% were afraid of patients as a result of violence, almost half 49% hid their identities from patients, 74% had reduced job satisfaction. Over one-fourth of the respondents took days off because of violence. Of respondents no longer working in the emergency department, 67% reported that they had left the job at least partly owing to violence. Twenty-four-hour security and a workshop on violence prevention strategies were felt to be the most useful potential interventions. Physical exercise, sleep and the company of family and friends were the most frequent coping strategies.

Read more about this topic:  Emergency Department

Famous quotes containing the words violence, health, care and/or workers:

    In violence we forget who we are.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    As they move into sharing parenting, men often are apprentices to women because they are not yet as skilled in child care. Mothers have to be willing to teach fathers—both by stepping in and showing and by stepping back and letting them learn.
    —Nancy Press Hawley. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 6 (1978)

    Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
    I am unfit for state and majesty.
    I do beseech you take it not amiss,
    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.
    Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)