Canadian Safety Reporter

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CSR | October 2015 | News Health-care workers targeted in violence-prevention programs B.C., Ontario, P.E.I. take measures to better protect staff BY ANASTASIYA JOGAL THE BRITISH COLUMBIA Nurses' Union (BCNU) and Brit- ish Columbia Ministry of Health have announced they plan to reduce violence at health-care sites in the province by pumping a combined $2 million into a vio- lence prevention program. "Health-care workers on the whole have a higher percentage of being assaulted than police of- ficers, which is a really sad fact," said Gayle Duteil, president of BCNU, adding it happens every day across a variety of work set- tings across the province. "Unfortunately, it came to our attention with a number of vicious assaults against health- care workers, nurses and doc- tors and we just couldn't let it continue." Jointly with the Ministry of Health, BCNU has outlined the four most troublesome sites in the province to focus the initia- tive on. But there are about 700 sites across the province where violent attacks are experienced often — with another six sites identified as high risk — that need to be addressed right away. "We are going to chip away one at a time and we are now go- ing to (be) linking with the gov- ernment and the health author- ity on the remaining six sites that we've identified," said Duteil. In due time, these types of initiatives do work, according to B.C.'s Ministry of Health. For example, the ministry and health partners have been working to reduce violence in the workplace with investments like a $37-mil- lion health and safety action plan launched in 2011. "Our efforts to reduce inci- dents of violence appear to be paying off. Over the last three years, we've seen the number of 'code whites' dropping from 4,307 to 3,749 — despite health authorities treating more and more patients each year," said the ministry's spokesperson. "Code whites" refers to a common database and a stan- dard user format established by health authorities — the Work- place Health Indicator Tracking and Evaluation (WHITE) — for collecting occupational health and safety data across all health authorities. The WHITE.net database shows 2,789 violent incidents reported from across the prov- ince in 2012 and 2,599 incidents reported in 2014. Of those re- ported in 2014, 47 per cent and 27 per cent were in long-term care, said the spokesperson. Violence can come from a number of different sources in- cluding patients, relatives and co-workers within the health department. Unfortunately, pa- tients with mental health issues or substance abuse tend to be- come violent, said Duteil. "And occasionally, domestic violence entering the work- place is an issue also," said Leon Genesove, chief physician at Ontario's Ministry of Labour, adding workplace violence is a serious hazard in the health-care sector in Ontario as well. Ontario gets onboard Recently, Ontario's Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health joined forces by estab- lishing a leadership table on workplace violence prevention to address the dire problem. "Workplace cause 10 per cent of lost-time injuries in the health-care sector, it is specif- ically in hospitals (that) nurses bear the major brunt of injuries from workplace violence," said Genesove. "We are focusing in- itially on nurses in hospitals and then expanding to other health- care workers in the broader health-care sector and we want to get a broad range of partners engaged in the leadership table." Similar to B.C., the Ontario ministries joined forces to com- bat violence because change just isn't coming quickly enough. "We need healthy health-care workers and safe health-care workplaces," said Genesove. Legislation came into effect in 2010 in Ontario to fight work- place violence against health- care workers, he noted. "It's (now) clear that enforce- ment alone of the legislation will not solve the problem com- pletely and we need leadership from the people involved in the health-care system." Back in 2005, Statistics Can- ada found that 31 per cent of nurses reported were being physically assaulted at work, with 25 per cent of the assault or abuse coming from a patient or visitor. Fifty-five per cent of the assault and abuse came from co-workers. Roundtable > pg. 12 P.E.I. focuses on prevention BY SABRINA NANJI A string of assaults on nursing staff at a psychiatric hospital in Charlottetown, P.E.I., has one union raising concerns over health and safety at the facility. A 21-year-old woman and patient at Hillsborough Hospital is serving jail time after assaulting a worker in July. It is the second jail sentence she has received for assaulting employees at the hospital, and just another in a slew of assaults on the staff members — including one incident where she punched and bit the leg of an employee. Staff are continually put in harm's way, according to the Union of Public Sector Employees (UPSE). For example, be- fore one altercation, the same patient had been taken out in public for the day, to go shopping, alongside five staff mem- bers. That the so many staffers were assigned to the one patient is indicative management is aware she posed some sort of threat or risk, said Debbie Boyver, president of P.E.I.'s. UPSE. "Management knows there's an issue there but they con- tinually put my members in danger by setting them up in situ- ations like that." After meeting with the hospital's human resources depart- ment and director of nursing, the union said it was unsatisfied with the lack of response, and it filed a claim at the provincial workers' compensation board. Concerns from staff at Hillsborough go beyond this one patient, and UPSE is looking for long-term solutions that will take into account the worker's safety. For instance, when an employee is required to use force to restrain a patient, it can be walking a fine line — if a staffer holds on too tight, the patient's safety becomes a liability, but loosen the grip and an unpredictable patient can become a personal threat. "Only the person holding onto that patient can determine how tight they need them to hang on," said Boyver, adding any new policies would benefit all parties involved. "Our members need to be protected, but we are not by any means saying the public and the patients don't need the same amount of attention," she said.

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