ORLANDO, Fla — A Florida nurse was attacked on the job and almost beaten to death. And it happens all the time.
One nurse described the last time she was attacked by a patient by saying, “He punched me in my face, and it took us a very long time just to subdue him.”
Jana Price loved being a nurse, but in 2022, after a decade on the job, she gave up working in the emergency room for good. It wasn’t because she was tired or burned out, but because she was afraid.
“The last attack I remember, when i walked out of the room, I was so angry, I came out crying, and the first thing that came out of mouth was ‘I am sick of this. I’m so tired of this because it was not the first time I had been assaulted but it was going to be the last,’” said Price.
According to the police report, Arthur Brewington was admitted to the hospital under the Marchman Act, which provides for involuntary assessment of people impaired by substance abuse.
Brewington had been restrained in his bed, but on the way back from the bathroom, police say he punched Price in the face and bit another nurse.
She remembers that day vividly, saying, “I thought it was safe, and he got angry he had a very specific look in his eye that he was angry, upset, and he was going to hurt us. We screamed for help for a very long time.”
A survey done in 2023 by the largest nurses’ union in the nation shows they reported increased rates of workplace violence towards nurses. Of nearly 1,000 surveyed, eight in 10 nurses said they experienced at least one type of workplace violence during the the prior year.
“We were short-staffed as always. Security was short-staffed. This is not anything specific for just this one hospital. This is the story in hospitals across the nation right now,” Price said.
Nurses also claim that training on how to protect themselves or deal with mentally ill or violent patients is lacking. Nurses say there needs to be a tracking system to report and investigate violence inside the hospitals.
The issue made national headlines when a nurse was brutally beaten by a patient at a West Palm Beach hospital.
Workers protested, asking for more training. They signed a petition asking for more staffing, armed deputies in emergency rooms and panic buttons. But Price says the only way to truly protect the hospital staff is with legislation.
Joan Thompson assesses workplaces to help protect employees’ health and safety. She’s working with national nurses united to support a federal bill called the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act. Thompson says it would address concerns like staffing and require hospitals to implement violence prevention plans. She says what employers are not doing is just not good enough.
“Things are not good. Employers are not doing what they need to do to protect nurses and other health care workers.” she said.
Thompson said employers are only focused on the bottom line, saying it is “unacceptable for them to put profit over patients and nurses.”
In the end, Price left the hospital saying she had post-traumatic stress disorder. She said the hospital canceled her insurance and sent her the bill for treatment. She sued though workman’s comp.
Price said she believes the reason so many people don’t speak up about the abuse is because they are worried about repercussions.
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