FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 18, 2001

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WASHINGTON, DC – In wake of the tragic murder of a nurse by a patient who was being admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Port St. Lucie, FL, the American Nurses Association (ANA) is calling for federal standards mandating a safer work environment for the nation's health care workers.

"No nurse should have to fear for her life while providing care to her patients," ANA President Mary Foley, MS, RN, said referring to the murder of registered nurse Alda Ellington by a psychiatric patient last week. "While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigates this tragic workplace fatality, family, friends and colleagues mourn the loss of a family member and dedicated mental health practitioner."

Chief among ANA's concerns regarding the incident are reports that short staffing and lapses in safety may have contributed to Ellington's death. "We are anxious to review the facts that will be revealed through this investigation," Foley noted, "and we hope that this tragic incident will serve as a catalyst for change."

Presently, no federal standards mandating a violence-free work environment for the nation's health care workers exist. Although urged by ANA and other health care employee unions in the early 1990s to publish a mandatory standard that would prevent workplace violence, OSHA implemented only voluntary guidelines. Since then, several states have passed legislation, but because no comprehensive federal standards are in place, nurses are still becoming the victims of workplace violence.

"We shouldn't have to wait until a senseless tragedy occurs before taking action," Foley asserted, noting that non-fatal assaults against nurses, nearly half of which are committed by patients, take place on a daily basis.

According to Foley, the increase in violence in health care is one of several factors contributing to an exodus of nurses from acute-care settings. "As ANA has stated repeatedly, our nation is experiencing a nursing shortage that will only worsen over time as the nation's aging baby boom population begins demanding increased nursing care," she said.

At the heart of the problem are poor working conditions in general. As was revealed by a recent ANA Staffing Survey (PDF), 75 percent of nurses surveyed feel the quality of nursing care at the facility in which they work has declined in the last two years, while 56 percent believe that the time they have available for patient care has decreased. "And in most instances, short-staffing practices are to blame," Foley said.

To protect against workplace violence, ANA recommends that nurses take the following precautions:

• Making sure their health care facilities track all assaults on patients, employees and visitors.
• Insisting that OSHA's Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care and Social Service Workers are being implemented at their facilities.
• Encouraging fellow employees to report threats (both verbal and physical), as well as injuries.
• Insisting that full medical treatment and post-assault counseling be provided in the event of an assault.
• Demanding that the facility's union negotiating team bargain for violence-prevention provisions in the unit's next contract.
• Making the presence of a violence-prevention program a criterion for accepting employment.

In the meantime, ANA will renew its push for stronger federal mandates on the issue. "If we hope to improve care in our health care facilities, we must improve nurses' working conditions, and that includes putting in place mandated protections against workplace violence," Foley asserted. "Our quest is for safe facilities, safe workers and safe patients, and a stronger commitment to this principle by the federal government."

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The American Nurses Association is the only full-service professional organization representing the nation's nearly 2.7 million Registered Nurses through its 54 constituent associations. ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

2001 press releases

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