This summer, a staff member Health Sciences North's Kirkwood site was mopping the floor when he was physically attacked by a patient, according to the union representing HSN's service and clerical staff.
“A fairly big patient, for whatever reason, decided he was going to throw punches at him and probably landed four or five off that individual's head,” said Dave Shelefontiuk, president of CUPE Local 1623.
The staff member was transferred to the hospital's main site after the incident, where Shelefontiuk spoke to him.
He suffered some bruising, but it was his mental state that Shelefontiuk was more concerned about. “He was very jittery,” he said, adding he didn't think the man was ready to be back at work yet.
Every day, health care workers experience everything from verbal assaults to outright violence such as the incident described above, Shelefontiuk said.
“We've had nursing staff that have been off work and still off work because they were strangled by their isolation gowns by a patient that was not in the right frame of mind,” he said.
The union rep said he's even been assaulted himself while at work — a patient threw her walker at him.
Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), also tells some chilling stories about Ontario hospital workers who have been the victims of workplace violence.
That includes a man who can no longer walk after he was thrown through through a wall by a patient on crystal meth.
“The Canadian Institute for Health Care Information, in stats it had in 2014, said that about one half of nurses were physically assaulted in that year,” he said. “That's kind of staggering when you think about it.”
In light of the undercurrent of violence in Ontario's health-care system, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) said it's looking for contract language aimed at reducing these incidents.
The OCHU, representing 27,000 hospital staff who are members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), has been in contract talks with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) since June.
But the OCHU broke those talks off last week because of what they say is the OHA's unwillingness to address the workplace violence issue.
“We asked if the hospitals could agree that we shared a common goal of workplaces that were free of violence, and they wouldn't agree to that,” Hurley said.
He said the union is only looking for modest monetary gains, but salaries haven't even come up in the talks yet.
It's possible to make health-care workers safer by doing things like putting up plexiglass barriers or installing more alarms, he said.
Hurley said the OHA is unwilling to write a joint letter to the government to ask for an investment in these kinds of measures, even though the Minister of Health has indicated an willingness to consider it.
Violence at hospitals is so common that staff normalize it, and are hesitant to file an incident report, as they're supposed to do, Shelefontiuk said.
Those incident reports are reviewed by the hospital's health and safety committee to see if any changes can be made.
In terms of how HSN deals with violence, Shelefontiuk said it's probably not the best in the province, but it's not the worst either.
After the staff member was assaulted at the Kirkwood site this summer, the housekeeping department is now offering “gentle, persuasive approaches” training to its staff members, he said.
This is a method of dealing with people with conditions such as dementia or mental illness that cause them to act out.
Sudbury.com reached out to both Health Sciences North and the OHA for a response to the union officials' comments.
Health Sciences North referred questions about bargaining to the OHA, but did comment on the workplace violence issue.
“HSN believes that all workers should have a safe work experience,” HSN said in the written statement.
“We’ve taken steps to help ensure the health and safety of our employees including public education and staff training. We also are working with the OHA as they perform data collection on workplace violence in hospitals across Ontario.”
The Ontario Hospital Association said in its own written statement that it's “disappointed” negotiations have reached an impasse.
“It is important to reiterate that the health and safety of employees has been, and will continue to be a priority for both the OHA and our member hospitals,” the statement said.
“While we know that the work performed by health-care providers is often challenging and demanding, acts of violence are never accepted as something that staff members should expect to face within the workplace.
“The OHA and hospital sector representatives continue to play leadership roles in the Workplace Violence in Health Care Leadership Table established by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
“We take the concerns brought forward very seriously and look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the provincial government and other stakeholders and organizations to ensure our hospitals are safe.”
