In response to recent tragedies at UPMC Memorial in Pennsylvania and HCA Florida Palms West Hospital, the nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses, National Nurses United (NNU), issued the following statement:

“We strongly condemn the senseless, unacceptable violence at UPMC Memorial and HCA Florida Palms West Hospital. Our hearts are with the victims, and all health care professionals, emergency responders, patients, community members, and their families who have been impacted.

“Hospitals should be sites of healing and, critically, employers must do their part to ensure safe staffing and prevent conditions that lead to workplace violence. But as health care employers disregard prevention, rates of workplace violence have dramatically increased in health care settings across the country. All incidents of workplace violence are unacceptable, as is the hospital industry’s failure to prioritize the safety of their patients and staff over their bottom line. Extensive research and scientific evidence show that unit-specific workplace violence prevention plans created with the expertise of direct care nurses and other health care workers substantially decrease violent incidents and increase safety for staff and patients. Safe staffing is a key foundation for effective workplace violence prevention plans.

“Preventing violence in hospitals and health care settings must be a national priority. As union nurses and patient advocates, through collective bargaining and legislative advocacy, NNU members have been documenting and pushing back on the industry’s failure to act. For years, NNU has endorsed federal legislation and petitioned for national workplace regulatory standards that mandate accountability from the hospital industry. This builds on our successful efforts to pass SB 1299 in California, which set a model for the nation by requiring California health care employers to have comprehensive, unit-specific workplace violence prevention plans. NNU’s efforts to fight for the same standard of protection for all nurses will continue this year.

“NNU encourages health care workers, patients, elected representatives, and the public to join our fight to pass and implement these standards, which would protect health care workers and the patients we serve.”

Background on workplace violence in health care settings:

To read more about NNU’s federal workplace violence prevention legislation, go here.

Nationwide surveys conducted by NNU, the nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses, have repeatedly found that the majority of nurses experience workplace violence and health care employers are neglecting essential prevention measures. 

NNU’s major findings on workplace violence include: 

• Eight in 10 nurses (81.6 percent) have experienced at least one type of workplace violence within the past year.
• Nearly half of nurses (45.5 percent) reported an increase in workplace violence in their unit in the previous year. In contrast, only 3.8 percent of nurses reported that workplace violence decreased in their unit in the previous year.
• Nurses experience multiple types of workplace violence on a daily basis, ranging from physical abuse to verbal threats. The three most common types of violence reported were being verbally threatened (67.8 percent), physically threatened (38.7 percent), and being pinched or scratched (37.3 percent).

Employers fail to provide safe staffing, which is essential to preventing workplace violence. NNU’s survey found that only 29.5 percent of nurses report that their employer has staff available at all times to respond to workplace violence and a mere 17.0 percent of nurses report that their employer places additional staff to reduce the risk of violence.

Employers neglect important workplace violence prevention measures. Only 62.8 percent of nurses report that their employer provides any training on workplace violence prevention. Only 31.7 percent of nurses report that their employer provides a clear way to report violent incidents. A mere 21.2 percent of nurses report that their employer changes practices following workplace violence incidents to prevent similar future incidents.

To read NNU’s latest report on workplace violence, including statistics and sources, go here.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.