DALLAS, TEXAS—
American emergency rooms, for patients, a place to get better, and for many nurses, an often dangerous workplace. The Emergency Nurses Association surveyed nearly 3,500 emergency nurses nationwide and found half have been spit on, hit, pushed or shoved, scratched and kicked. 25% have had it happen twenty times over the past three years.Flame Uytico is an emergency room clinical supervisor at Texas Health Dallas.
"Yes, I have encountered that already, every now and then I encountered some kind of violence in the emergency room."
Uytico says the emergency room, crammed with the sick and the injured, can be a breeding ground for abuse.
"Triage is a place you know is overcrowded and people are frustrated over the nursing processes there and that's where it escalates into the potential for violence."
Emergency doctor Michael Fawcett says nurses spend a lot of time with patients who can have mental problems or simply stressed out.
"That's unfortunately a common occurrence, I think a lot of times people don't mean to do it, it's just that they are in stressful situations in the emergency department, sometimes it's fueled by drugs or alcohol and people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do in other places."
Texas Health Dallas is being proactive, the emergency area is lined with security cameras which are monitored 24 hours a day.Panic buttons are everywhere, including nursing stations. Security guards walk the hallways and Dallas police officers are in triage 24-7. Nurse Uytico needed one's help about a month ago.
"Just by his presence alone it ensures protection and it also subsided the patients anger and violence now that they are seeing a police officer right next to me."
Another day in the life of an emergency nurse. Texas Health Dallas will soon begin a class that will teach nurses how to defuse potential violent situations. The emergency room there has about ninety emergency nurses.
