(DALLAS, WBAP/KLIF News) — Texas health care officials say stress and frustration over the continuing COVID-19 pandemic have triggered verbal and physical abuse against health workers due to stress and increasingly restrictive hospital rules and protocols. One Dallas hospital official told the Texas Tribune some employees have suffered name-calling, racial slurs and even broken noses.
Jane McCurley, chief nursing executive for Methodist Healthcare System, held a news conference following a threatening incident. She explained, “Our staff have been cursed at, screamed at, threatened with bodily harm and even had knives pulled on them.” She said these are just a handful of daily incidents at their facilities but added, “there is definitely an increasing number of occurrences every day.”
The Tribune reports that hospital staff members “are historically vulnerable to workplace violence due to the nature of their jobs.” The report goes on to explain medical workers frequently encounter patients having mental and emotional issues, extreme pain, and bad reactions to street drugs. The fear and stress of just being in a hospital or having children admitted is hard for people to deal with.
Now, pandemic stress is made worse by job losses.
Similar abuses have been reported by workers at airports, schools, and grocery stores. Police say the incidence of road rage has increased, as well. Hospitals, however, are much more limited in how they can respond to personal hostility.
Karen Garvey, vice president of patient safety and clinical risk management at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas, told the Tribune patient and visitor assaults of hospital staff is nothing new, it just hasn’t been public knowledge until now. “Health care workers have been dealing with this for years, and it’s become more pronounced with the COVID pandemic.”
