Lawmakers Highlight Violence Against Health-Care Workers
By: Michael Rose
April 14 (BNA) -- Health-care workers experience workplace violence at a higher rate than workers in other industries, and the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration can take steps to help address the issue, according to a Government Accountability Office report released April 14.
The report was commissioned by several Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking minority members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, respectively.
At a Capitol Hill press conference, the lawmakers were joined by members of health-care unions who discussed their individual experiences suffering instances of physical violence in the workplace.
They said the report showed the need for a new OSHA rulemaking that would require health-care employers to institute violence prevention programs and would establish an enforceable workplace violence standard.
Need for Enforceable Standard
Scott said OSHA already has taken some limited action to help mitigate violence in health-care settings, such as providing voluntary guidance to employers and establishing training grants.
But, Scott said, “OSHA has the authority to issue an industry-specific standard, and this report highlights the need to take that action.”
Bernie Gerard, first vice president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a New Jersey union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers that represents some 12,000 workers, told Bloomberg BNA before the press conference that currently, although OSHA can issue “hazard alert letters,” the letters aren't enforceable.
“OSHA directives as they are now are skewed for the employer,” Gerard said, because the hazard alert letters issued by the agency are “nothing more than recommendations.”
If OSHA were to establish a standard on workplace violence in health-care settings, “that's bulletproof,” Gerard said.
Union Official Outlines Strategies
As for examples of specific steps hospitals could take to reduce the risk of violence against workers, Gerard said nurses' stations could be positioned so that they face the door. He also mentioned the use of “personal call devices for people working in isolated areas.”
The report said that in 2013, according to data from the DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 153,000 workers reported assaults in health-care facilities, and nearly 25,000 incidents were severe enough that the employee had to miss one or more days of work.
Furthermore, the report said, workplace injuries due to violence at health-care facilities are likely underreported.
“The most common types of reported assaults were hitting, kicking, and beating,” the report said. “The full extent of the problem and associated costs is unknown, however, because according to related studies GAO reviewed, health care workers may not always report such incidents, and there is limited research on the issue, among other reasons.”
The report stopped short of urging OSHA to adopt a rulemaking similar to what was called for by lawmakers and union officials. But it made several recommendations, including that OSHA increase the degree to which it follows up on hazard alert letters to employers, and that it provide its inspectors with additional information related to workplace violence so that they might be better able to issue citations.
The report also said OSHA should “assess the results of its efforts” to address the issue in recent years.
Scott acknowledged that it was unlikely that a rulemaking on workplace violence for health-care workers would be completed during the last months of the Obama administration.
“But it's something they can start,” he said, referring to OSHA.
A spokeswoman for the American Hospital Association told Bloomberg BNA that her organization was reviewing the GAO report, but she didn't provide further comment.
Workers who spoke at the press conference were members of the AFT, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, National Nurses United and the United Steelworkers.
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