Public Employee Press

Violence at work
Union stands strong to protect members from workplace violence

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

When a psychiatric patient violently attacked Dr. Ben Adams at Kings County Hospital, his bruises took weeks to heal. Hospital police intervened but administrators blocked the case from being reported to the New York Police Dept.

"I felt my needs were being overlooked and my rights were not being protected," said Adams, a Psychologist Level 2 in Local 1189. "I have a right to press charges if someone attacks me."

Public hospital employees work in increasingly volatile conditions. NYC Health + Hospitals employees get spit on, bitten, stabbed and punched, yet they keep working. When workers are attacked in patients' rooms or in clinics, there may be no video record of the assault.

NYC Health + Hospitals has become so patient-centered, workers feel their own rights and safety are not seen as important.

Managers often categorize assaults as accidents - and they add insult to injury by preventing employees from pressing charges. Staff is traumatized and in survival mode, doing the best they can under these stressful circumstances.

"We have a great patient program," said Dr. Adams, "but the missing piece is management. They need to support us and stand behind us when we press charges."

No procedures, no arrests

Albany lawmakers recently added Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics in Local 2507 and Local 768 Sanitarians to the state assault protection code. DC 37 hopes to see all health workers added soon (see here).

"It's troubling that Health and Hospitals central office has not met with the union nor devised a plan to address assaults on the job," said Carmen Charles, president of Local 420. "We've seen some case-by-case responses from managers, but central office has no set procedures or training for our members who care for violent patients. So the union is taking the initiative and meeting with our members at facilities in the absence of direction or a universal approach from Health and Hospitals."

After the Public Employee Press ran an article on assaults in December 2015, Psych Tech Aitza Caballero said Bellevue Hospital installed panic buttons in the Detox Dept. so workers could signal hospital police. When asked if she feels safer with the panic buttons, Caballero said, "I can alert hospital police but I don't know the response time. We've not received any formal training on how to protect ourselves and patients. Our main worry is patients are not brought through metal detectors."

"We find all sorts of contraband and when we take it away, the patient becomes agitated, even violent," said Caballero. "We never know what's coming next."

Caballero and her coworkers made recommendations to management to improve patient and worker safety by having patients change into hospital gowns; creating a central depository to admit patients, and increasing staff to four Pysch Techs from just two.

"Health and Hospitals needs a zero tolerance policy," said Dr. Adams. "When patients learn they can get away with attacking staff - in fact some call us punching bags and use us as such." He said the Brooklyn district attorney does not press charges against psych patients, which sends a harmful message.

"We should not be making that decision to not press charges. Let the law decide what happens," said Adams. "We are mental health workers. The Dept. of Behavioral Health's goal is to change behavior. "If we dismiss charges, it doesn't help the patient face their behavior. We are not protecting them from themselves when we don't help them see there are real consequences for their actions."

Dr. Adams said if standard operating procedure was to arrest attackers, things would be different. "If patients know an arrest will follow an assault, they'd change their behavior," he said. "When we remove consequences, we have no ability to change behavior and violent patients are not getting the care they need."