The workers in the healthcare system across the country have reported an increase in the violence of patients and their families in hospitals. According to a 2023 Opinion poll National Nurses United almost half of the nurses believed that violent incidents had increased in their units last year.
During this time, more than 80% of those surveyed stated that they experience violence at the workplace, including behaviors such as verbal or physical threats, battery and sexual harassment.
In response to the increase in violence at the workplace in the healthcare sector, the state of Georgia passed the Safe hospitals laws In 2023, the invoice increased the minimum penalty due to serious bodily harm or battery at a hospital employee on a hospital campus and expanded the definition of the health employee to an employee or contractor who works in a health facility. The law also authorized hospitals to form their own police forces.
So far, there have been hardly any indications of reduced violence at the workplace in the year since the law was passed, said, said, said Anna AdamsThe Chief Government Relations Officer der Georgia Hospital Associationwho worked with the representative of the state representative Matt Reeves (R-duluth) when he wrote the legislation. However, the full effects of the law may not be obvious if more hospitals set up police stations.
Only seven certified law enforcement officers were discontinued by Georgia Hospital in July 2023 after the new law came into force in July 2023 Data of the Standards and training council Georgia Peace Officer Received from Duke University researchers.
All of these employees were at Hall Health NavicentOne of the few health systems in the state that set up A Hospital police Before the new action. The flagship of the system in Macon has had a police presence since the 1950s when it was known as Macon Hospital, and in 1975 it began to linger in the officials through their own police department, which was approved in coordination with the city council.
Police stations do not appear on campus in the hospital overnight. After a 2013 The invoice Enabled hospitals in Indiana to found police stations, the first hospital This did not swore in its first class of officers until April 2014.
Adams said that since the financial year of a hospital in July in July, the health organizations have recently started to set resources for a police. She expected that the extensive network of Piedmont The hospitals in the state will soon form a police department because the system had campaigned for the ability to hire certified civil servants who were finally included in the Safer Hospitals Act.
This prediction was repeated by Jonathan del CastilloA lieutenant Public Safety Officer in Piedmont, who said the system could have a police department in two or three years.
Police officers who have been employed by a hospital differ from traditional security officers, since the former attended a police academy that is certified by the standards and the training council of their state peace officer, explained Del Castillo. This certification enables officials to make arrests and to grant them qualified immunity in the course of their tasks.
The local police can call existing security teams to make arrests, but to lead the criminal prosecution on site to faster response times, since the officials are better familiar with the facility and have a relationship with employees Jesse CrowderThe chief of police for Atrium Health Navicent.
While he believes that there is a place for police in hospitals, del Castillo questioned the need for a “full” department for armed officials. He said that such a violent exhibition could be bad for the look and that there is hardly any evidence that police authorities restrict violence at the hospital workplace.
Del Castillo said that hospitals often hire off-duty officials from local police authorities as security officers so that they ramps the presence of the police without forming a hospital troop. Individual police forces can pursue the secondary employment of their civil servants, but Georgia's post office does not keep up any records of these agreements, which makes it difficult to determine whether the contracts for non -serving civil servants are more common because the state's hospitals are trying to combat violence at work.
Existing security forces in hospitals have increased their efforts in recent years. Del Castillo said that a reorganization of the Piedmont security team this summer had created Lieutenant positions, including its current role.
Since the restructuring, officials of all Piedmont facilities for wearing Glock 9 -mm pistols have been licensed in addition to Tasern and truncheons. The Well star The hospital system has recently been recently introduced Armed guards in his facilities.
Del Castillo expressed skepticism that firearms prevent violent actions, since many patients who act against employees in healthcare experience experience a crisis for mental health and may not be deterred by an officer with a weapon.
There is little public data about the hospital police, but one literature review Contracts can maintain further violence through excessive strength, cause patients to cause psychological stress and affect the relationship between patients and providers.
While this review was not distinguished between police and security forces, one recently in the latest analysis The roles of hospital police officers were found from over a decade of media stories about police violence in hospitals, the local police and security forces were often intertwined.
A police presence in the hospital “changes the culture of the health facility,” said legal professor Sunita Patel The University of California, Los Angeles. In 2022 she published A review From law enforcement authorities at Veterans Health Administration Facilities that criticize the “web policetz” that achieve unjust results for marginalized patients such as disabled veterans and colored people.
Patel recognized unique conditions that distinguish the Veterans Health Administration from other organizations, namely the inability of the program to end the care of a patient who shaped their unique approach to law enforcement. Nevertheless, she believes that most of her conclusions apply to other health facilities.
Patel quoted the Detroit's life is valuable every day Program in the Detroit Medical Center, which is supposed to tackle the basic causes of violence in the community as an effective strategy for the prevention of violence, although violence on the hospital campus itself is not the main focus of the program.
The debate on adequate security strategies for patients and health employees equally takes place against the background of increased violence in the hospital. Adams from the Georgia Hospital Association described the Covid 19 pandemic as a “catalyst” for the increase in violence against workers in healthcare.
Distrust and frustration through mask and vaccine mandates contributed to this growing violence, according to a 2021 report from the US Ministry of Health and Human Services deputy secretary for willingness and reaction.
Adams observed that attacks by patients and their families have not significantly reduced in the years since the peak of pandemic. “We already have such a great lack of healthcare workers,” she said. “You leave the workforce because you are afraid of going to work and fear of being attacked is really just the problem.”
Last spring, Adams took part in the annual conference of the American Hospital Association in Washington, DC, where she and her colleagues from other states spoke out uncertainty about how they can make hospitals more secure for employees and patients.
“Nobody seems to have the answer to prevent these acts of violence,” said Adams. “It was a hard nut to crack.”
