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    Nurses and other healthcare workers face increased violence on the job

    Joe Maniscalco, DC Report @ Raw Story
    March 03, 2021

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    OSHA let employers decide whether to report health care worker deaths -- and many didn't
    Coronavirus Belgium Mathilde Dumont, a 27-year-old nurse (AFP : Aris Oikonomou)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Joe Maniscalco, DC Report @ Raw Story

    Covid-19 is already responsible for killing some 3,500 healthcare workers across the United States. Now America's nurses say they're being subjected to another chilling aspect of the ongoing pandemic — increasing workplace violence.

    The National Nurses United (NNU) surveyed 15,000 of its members last fall. As astounding 20% responded said they have been physically attacked on the job.

    Healthcare workers are five times more likely to be victimized on the job than other workers overall, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS found that healthcare workers accounted for 73-percent of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illness due to violence in 2018. Nurse labor leaders say the pandemic has made matters worse.

    The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating violent outbursts from patients.

    On February 9, Gregory Patrick Ulrich, a 67-year-old man grappling with opioid addiction, was arrested after he shot up the Allina Clinic Crossroads health clinic in Buffalo, Minn. Lindsay Overbay, a 37-year-old mother of two and medical assistant working at the facility later died. Four others recovered from gunshot wounds.

    Ulrich is facing second-degree murder and attempted murder charges, but that's the criminal justice system's swift and clear response. The worker safety side of the equation is entirely different, an underfunded and hobbled system that could protect workers better in many ways, reducing death and misery.

    Assaults in ERs, Offices

    Assaults in emergency rooms, doctor's offices, and even hospital lobbies all add to the dangers facing nurses in the tense social conditions fostered by the pandemic.

    NNU insists that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating violent outbursts from patients and that hospital employers aren't doing enough to protect long-suffering healthcare workers. NNU is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses with 170,000 members.

    Allysha Shin, a member of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee, is a registered nurse who's still dealing with the trauma of being battered and kicked in the face while attempting to care for a distraught patient at the University of Southern California's Keck Medical Center in Los Angeles.

    Shin's entire ordeal, in which hospital security was reportedly slow to respond, lasted what to Shin were 30 very long minutes. The blows the veteran nurse suffered ultimately forced her to miss the next two shifts at work. Shin blames hospital bosses for failing to have adequate safety standards in place. She and other nurses want enforcement of safety standards – and the writing of adequate standards by each employer of nurses.

    "They will say it was inevitable," Shin says of her attack in 2016. "But I'm here to tell you, nothing could be further from the truth — the patient's history made this incident predictable."

    Underreported Workplace Violence

    News about working conditions gets spotty attention in America where labor reporters at major news organizations have gone from few to virtually extinct. So DCReport has been documenting America's weak worker safety enforcement and the unnecessary risks faced by w0orkers because the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration has far too small a budget to fulfill its duties.

    A half-century ago about 190 workers died on the job each week. That number was down to about 100 in 2019, BLS data shows. But that's still a costly toll on society aided by members of Congress who have held down the budget for enforcing job safety laws and imposed rules that weaken enforcement, all in the name of fighting supposed overregulation of business.

    Many of the most ardent foes of more effective worker safety enforcement proclaim their devotion to the sanctity of human life yet disregard the safety of workers in occupations from construction and mining to nursing.

    Jean Ross, NNU co-president, says that the threat of criminal prosecution alone cannot prevent workplace violence — and that several factors directly associated with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic are, indeed, contributing to an ugly escalation of violent incidences like the kind Shin endured.

    Not Enough Workers

    A disruption in mental health services is one of the factors. Short staffing — a chronic pre-existing condition at hospitals nationwide — is another.

    "If they're not going to supply us with enough staff, this is going to make it 100 times worse," Ross says.

    Back in June, when the Covid-19 death toll was around 100,000 people, Michelle Gonzalez, a 31-year-old nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, described what it was like trying to care for multiple patients in the middle of a pandemic.

    "The days that I had up to four [patients], I came home and cried like a baby," Gonzalez said at the time. "Your body cannot physically do that. You can't be at two places at once. So, you just run to room to room to room — neglecting your own body's needs. Not eating, not drinking because you can't take off the mask. Not going to the bathroom for 12 hours."

    Tens of Thousands Hospitalized

    As of March 1, there were 47,352 Americans hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Of that number, 9,802 were in Intensive Care Units struggling for life — 3,245 of them on ventilators, a last-ditch treatment which few survive.

    Fear of Covid-19 is also forcing some patients to delay seeking necessary medical attention and that, too, is adding to simmering tensions, according to Ross.

    "People aren't coming in early enough" to get vital care at hospitals, Ross says. "Maybe they're in sepsis. That's hard to control. A simple UTI (urinary tract infection), can make people go off the wall."

    Sepsis occurs when the body's response to infection goes into overdrive and assaults organs. Unless treated early it can result in death.

    Visitor Issues

    Visiting family members can be both a hindrance and a help to nurses and other healthcare workers aiding the sick.

    "There are more things we have to say no to — [some] people don't respond well (to being told), 'You must wear a mask,'" Ross says. "More patients and their families are acting up. Employers don't want to hear about it and sweep it under the rug."

    Reporting violent incidences is voluntary, however. So, the actual number of healthcare workers being attacked on the job is probably a lot higher than statistics show.

    Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) pointed out that nurses are often told to just "shake it off."

    Nurses and their allies hope that the change in presidential administrations will put Courtney's 2019 Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act on the fast track.

    The measure, updated and reintroduced last month, seeks to compel employers to investigate workplace violence incidents, risks, or hazards as soon as practicable. It would also mandate training and education of employees who may be exposed to workplace violence; impose record-keeping requirements; and prohibit discrimination or retaliation against employees for reporting workplace violence incidents, threats, or concerns.

    The bill garnered enough votes to pass in the House in the previous Congress but died in the Senate during the Trump administration.

    "The Senate was a graveyard for lots of good bills," Rep. Courtney says. "This one failed [when] the Trump administration was doing nothing at the Department of Labor. For four years, he just basically dismissed this as not a priority. I hope [incoming Labor Secretary Marty] Walsh gives this attention."

    States Lead

    Similar legislation aiming to establish enforceable safety standards and training in deescalating violence has already been adopted in California and Minnesota. But the nurses' union says national standards are necessary because while nurses are taught how to recognize medical needs, they aren't taught criminology.

    "I've been a nurse for 40 years — I didn't take violence 101," says Ross.

    NNU, along with 44 allied unions and organizations, continues to push the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] to update its Covid-19 safety guidelines to reflect the dangers that aerosols — fine particles emitted when breathing, speaking, coughing, sneezing or singing — pose to healthcare workers.

    Nurse Pat Kane, executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, says many of the thousands of healthcare workers killed by the novel coronavirus could have been saved had the CDC recognized the threat of aerosols before the long-predicted pandemic was recognized more than a year ago.

    "The healthcare and other essential workforces have been devastated by Covid-19 infection and thousands have died due to their occupational exposure," Kane said in a statement. "Many of those exposures could have been avoided if the CDC had recognized the wealth of data that proves that SARS-CoV-2 is spread through inhalation of airborne virus particulates."

    SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes Covid-19, its number derived from the year when it was first identified as a novel, or new, coronavirus.

    Kane says her 42,000 members and all other healthcare workers "deserve federal guidance that fully recognizes the risk of airborne exposure and recommends controls that effectively limit this exposure."

    The American Hospital Association frets the costs of the pandemic. It recently released a report estimating that the pandemic could cost hospitals between $53 and $122 billion in 2021.

    Ross noted that the hospital owners have not issued a similar report focused on the lethal risks their nurses and others take every day. Evidently, says Ross,

    "Our lives aren't as important as money."

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

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    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Should Trump be allowed back on social media?

    Greg Gutfeld's Fox News 'comedy' show mocked for being preempted after being on for 'half a Scaramucci'

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 13, 2021

    Greg Gutfeld's new Fox News show was expanded briefly to weeknights but according to reporter Aaron Rupar, it disappeared Tuesday night. In Anthony Scaramucci time, that's just half a "Scaramucci," he remarked.

    Only half a Scaramucci after its debut, Gutfeld! is abruptly preempted
    — Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1618370057.0

    The former White House communications director spent just 11 days on the job. Former President Donald Trump was so infamous for his hiring and firing that Scaramucci became a unit of measure by which employment under Trump was calculated.

    Gutfeld was preempted by former Trumpster Larry Kudlow, who infamously screamed at Dr. Anthony Fauci for disagreeing hydroxychloroquine was a cure for COVID-19. Fauci ultimately was proved right, and Kudlow got a Fox News show.

    The show from Gutfeld was an attempt to craft humor over liberal policies or progressive statements, but it has frequently fallen flat with the audience.

    "As for those late-night shows we're supposed to compete against: Why bother? Who do they offend?" Gutfeld asked in the opening monologue of the first episode. Since then, reviews have come in from traditional media outlets questioning the hypocrisy at those it pokes fun.

    It's unclear if Gutfeld's show is on an unexpected hiatus or if Kudlow had some breaking economic news that needed to be addressed at 11 p.m. EST on Tuesday night. Either way, Gutfeld was nowhere to be found.

    Here are the biggest mistakes from Chauvin's lawyers today — other than paying expert $11,000 for testimony: experts

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 13, 2021

    Barry Brodd, a former police officer and so-called "use-of-force expert," was paid $11,000 to say that Derek Chauvin's actions were "justified."

    According to the New York Times and Washington Post, if Brodd seemed to be having a tough time saying the words "top" when asked about Derek Chauvin's positioning on George Floyd. As if it was a game of "charades," Brodd repeatedly didn't "understand" simple questions about where Chauvin was with respect to Floyd.

    "Yeah, no," said trial attorney Katie Phang speaking to MSNBC's Joy Reid Tuesday evening. She went on to explain that Brodd was unlikable and that he and the defense ultimately failed during the proceedings. She went on to wonder why the defense team would use him when there are other more likable experts.

    Brodd was called in as an expert witness in the Laquan McDonald trial as well, which Phang said he failed at too.

    "What was really critical about this expert is that he was trying desperately to show in a very clinical way that use of force has to be done, you know, compliant with police procedures, et cetera," she went on. "The problem is the defense must assume that the jury is not paying attention because we heard from the actual guy, Lt. Johnny Mercil, who said that technique that Derek Chauvin used is not taught by the Minnesota PD. So, we already have the person who is actually in charge of everything, including the chief of police saying we don't condone this. We don't authorize this and the other critical mistake made by the defense was through this guy, Barry Brodd."

    She went on to say that a "golden rule" of trials is never to ask the members of the jury to put themselves in the shoes of the defendant.

    "That's a mistrial so what's critically wrong with this argument they're doing? If you ask the jurors any of these 12 jurors to put themselves in the shoes of Derek Chauvin, none are ever going to say what that cop did was reasonable, objectively, subjectively wasn't reasonable so that was a major mistake because none of those jurors will say that 9:29 on somebody without a pulse as something they would ever do as a reasonable officer. That was a critical problem," she said.

    See the video below:


    Why Barry Brodd was such a huge and expensive failure for the defense www.youtube.com

    Brooklyn Center police throw flashbangs at kneeling protest crowd an hour before curfew

    Sarah K. Burris
    April 13, 2021

    The Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police, sheriffs and national guard appear to be pushing back against protesters in the streets angry over another death at the hands of police. The protests have been largely peaceful, other than throwing water bottles at cops. Large fencing being set up and law enforcement, clad in full riot gear, with a police tank at the ready.

    "You need to disburse and leave the area," police said over a loudspeaker an hour before the designated curfew. They said that the assembly is "unlawful" and are demanding that protesters and the media leave the scene.

    It's the third night of unrest after police "accidentally" shot unarmed Daunte Wright. Pepper spray, flashbangs and a line of police surged forward toward into crowd of protesters, who carried umbrellas to protect themselves.

    A soft blanket of snow fell, mixing with the smoke and anger in the crowd.

    See a CNN report of the protests below:


    Unrest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota www.youtube.com

     
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