Recent Poll results from OCHU/CUPE reveal more Kingston registered practical nurses (RPN) and personal support workers (PSWs) experienced physical violence during the past year than the provincial average.
1,976 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members working in hospitals in seven Ontario communities including Kingston were surveyed earlier this fall by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE).
Across Ontario, 68 percent of RPN and PSW respondents said they had experienced at least one incident of physical violence in the hospital over the past year, including punching, hitting, or having things thrown at them. Almost 20 per cent revealed having been physically assaulted nine times or more during that period.
In the sampling from Kingston, 78 percent of local RPN and PSWs said they experienced at least one incident of physical violence in the year – 10 percent higher than the provincial average. Over 17 percent of Kingston respondents experienced some form of physical violence at least nine times during the year.
Poll results were released in Kingston this past week by OCHU president Michael Hurley and Scott Sharp, a personal support worker (PSW) who a OCHU/CUPE release states was “thrown through a wall by a very disturbed patient at a Guelph hospital and is, over two years later, struggling to recover and return to work.”
“The level of physical violence that I experienced and that so many other hospital staff experience every day, scars the body and it scars the soul,” said Scott Sharp in the release. “Not enough is being done by the hospitals to create a culture where violent behaviour is simply not tolerated. Instead the victims of violence are to a large extent, simply swept under the carpet.”
The poll indicated 42 percent of nurses and personal support workers in Ontario say they experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment or assault in the past year.
“Hospital management is scandalously complacent about an environment where their largely female staff are frequently hit and sexually harassed and sexually assaulted,” said Michael Hurley. “Managers see this as just part of our jobs. One staff member who was sexually assaulted was told by her supervisor that the patient must have been sexually frustrated. People working in healthcare should have the same rights not to be physically or sexually assaulted or harassed as any other person.”
44 per cent of polled RPNs and PSWs do not agree that their employer protects them and their co-workers effectively from violence, according to the poll.
Hospital staff in other support occupations also report experiencing physical assault, with 24 percent polled province-wide saying they have been pushed, hit or had things thrown at them at least once in the past year.
In its release, OCHU/CUPE called on the federal and provincial governments for legislative and legal changes to protect health care staff.
Photo (modified) via PixaBay (cc)
