Taking The Violence-Prevention Message To Victoria
NURSES' DELEGATION BCNU Acting Vice President Adriane Gear and Acting President Christine Sorensen met with Labour Minister Harry Bains in Victoria this October to discuss the urgent need for action to prevent violence in health care today.
It's time to get on with the changes politicians pledged to carry out
Nurses need to know that when they go to work they can expect to come home without being assaulted on the job. The law obliges employers to protect their employees from workplace violence, but BC's health authorities and WorkSafeBC are still not doing enough to ensure that health-care workplaces are as safe as they should be.
That's why BCNU Acting President Christine Sorensen and Acting Vice President Adriane Gear met with Labour Minister Harry Bains in October to discuss the urgent need for further action to prevent violence in health care today.
Sorensen and Gear came armed with a tally of BCNU's violence prevention pledges signed by members of the current legislature during the last election – 61 in all, 33 by NDP MLAs and two by their Green Party partners – to remind the minister of the specific actions they pledged to take.
As background, they noted that violence against nurses has been steadily rising in BC, and that in 2015, injuries to nurses from attacks accounted for 31 percent of all such claims in the health and social services sector. They also presented recent Mustel Group polling numbers showing that nine out of ten British Columbians agree that more should be done to protect nurses at work.
Minister Bains is not only one of the MLAs who signed the BCNU pledge, he is also now the minister responsible for WorkSafeBC, the agency tasked with ensuring the safety of all BC workers and handling injured workers' claims, including those resulting from violence at work.
"We wanted the minister to be aware that while WorkSafeBC is technically responsible for ensuring employers eliminate or minimize all workplace hazards, including the risks of violence, it has failed to intervene effectively in health care to ensure violence is prevented," says Sorensen.
In fact, while WorkSafeBC has identified health care as one of four sectors in BC with above-average injury rates and targeted it for a "high-risk strategy" to address problems, BCNU is unaware of any concrete actions taken to effectively reduce the risk of violence in the sector.
"That's one reason we mobilized our lobby coordinators, occupational health and safety reps, and mental health reps to go out and get politicians to sign pledges committing them to act," says Gear. "WorkSafeBC has not been doing its job of ensuring appropriate protection for nurses, and so we want to get politicians committed to actions that are long overdue."
Sixty-one signed pledges do create an expectation that, once elected, politicians will actually take action, she notes.
BCNU's electoral pledge states that it's essential there be enough nurses working at all times to manage care safely. Inadequate staffing is known to increase the risks of violence, because patients, residents and family members can become agitated, frustrated with delays, and anxious about their needs.
"Health authorities are still dragging their heels rather than providing properly trained security to protect nurses."
The pledge also places high priority on making properly trained security available, 24-7, at high-risk sites across BC. Today there are numerous hospitals with ERs, psychiatric wards, and other high-traffic, high-risk services that do not have properly trained security on hand. Proper training includes being equipped with de-escalation techniques, ready-to-go and hands-on in the event of an emergency.
"We informed the minister that few sites come anywhere near this standard today, but the rising incidence of violence means this needs to become the norm at every high-risk site," says Sorensen. "We also told him that while our collective agreement identifies an extensive list of sites for priority upgrades, health authorities are still dragging their heels rather than providing properly trained security to protect nurses."
The 61 politicians who signed the BCNU pledge also committed to speak out in favour of tougher sentencing for those convicted of assaulting a nurse. Specifically, they agreed to publicly advocate modifying the Criminal Code of Canada to make violence against a nurse an "aggravating circumstance" for sentencing purposes, as was done in 2015 for transit operators.
"We also shared our intention to approach Health Minister Adrian Dix in the near future, and deliver over 14,000 postcards from supporters calling on politicians to make good on their pledges to act," she adds. "We will also be inviting Minister Dix to lead the charge on tougher sentencing and the other improvements the pledges commit to."
The MLA pledge cards also commit signatories to support the establishment of safety, security and Code White standards that protect nurses across BC from aggression at work.
"The sanctuary nature of health care in our society requires a violence-free workplace, and the pledges signed by so many sitting MLAs means there's promise that this will happen," says Sorensen. "Our message to the minister was that it's time to get on with the changes politicians pledged to carry out." •
UPDATE (Dec 2017)