The province has announced it will train 320 in-house protection service officers and 14 violence prevention leads to address increasing levels of workplace violence faced by health-care workers.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the move, in which the new staff will be deployed to 26 hospital and mental health facilities across B.C., is an effort to improve the recruitment and retention crisis in the health care sector and will result in better patient care.
“Making our health-care facilities free of violence will ensure all health-care employees have safe and healthy workplaces and that the patients that count on them are accessing care in a safe environment,” he said.
In roughly the past year there were 4,438 reported incidents of violence in the B.C. health-care sector, with 721 time-loss claims and WorkSafeBC compensation payouts of approximately $7 million, Dix said.
The B.C. Nurses Union (BCNU) said workplace violence experienced by its members is exacerbated by understaffing and is greatly under-reported and understudied.
“Our members get punched, kicked, grabbed, spat on, as well as being verbally and sexually harassed,” said BCNU president Aman Grewal.
“Desperately short-staffed facilities are often leading to understandable frustration and fear among patients and their loved ones, something we are seeing at rising levels across the system.”
Grewal said the BCNU has been advocating for years for additional staff to protect nurses.
