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Omaha, Neb. – More than a year after U.S. healthcare workers on the frontlines against Covid-19 were hailed as heroes with nightly applause from windows and balconies, some are given panic buttons when assaulted and give up their scrubs before going out in public for fear of harassment.
Across the country, doctors and nurses face hostility, threats and violence from patients angry at safety regulations designed to prevent the scourge from spreading.
“A year ago we were health heroes and everyone was cheering us on,” said Dr. Stu Coffman, an emergency physician from Dallas. “And now in some areas we’re harassed, disbelieving and ridiculed for what we’re trying to do, which is just downright depressing and frustrating.”
Cox Medical Center Branson in Missouri began giving panic buttons to up to 400 nurses and other employees after assaults per year tripled between 2019 and 2020 to reach 123, a spokeswoman said. A nurse had to have her shoulder x-rayed after a stroke.
Hospital spokeswoman Brandei Clifton said the pandemic was behind at least part of the increase.
“A lot of nurses say, ‘It’s just part of the job,’ Clifton said. “It’s not part of the job.
Some hospitals have limited the number of public entrances. In Idaho, nurses said they were afraid to go to the grocery store unless they changed their outfit to avoid being accosted by angry residents.
Doctors and nurses at a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, have been accused of killing patients by grieving family members who do not believe Covid-19 is real, said hospital spokesperson Caiti Bobbitt. Others have been the subject of hurtful rumors spread by people angry at the pandemic.
“Our healthcare workers almost feel like Vietnam veterans, scared to go out into the community after a shift,” Bobbitt said.
Over Labor Day weekend in Colorado, a passerby threw an unidentified liquid at a nurse working at a mobile vaccination clinic in suburban Denver. Another person in a van crushed and destroyed signs placed around the clinic tent.
About 3 in 10 nurses who took part in a survey this month by an umbrella organization of nurses’ unions across the United States reported an increase in violence where they work due to factors such as a shortage of nurses. staff and more visitor restrictions. This was up from 2 in 10 in March, according to the National Nurses United survey of 5,000 nurses.
Michelle Jones, a nurse in a Covid-19 intensive care unit in Wichita, Kansas, said patients arrive scared, sometimes several from the same family, and often close to death. Their relatives are angry, thinking the nurses and doctors are letting them die.
“They cry, they cry, they sit outside our small group intensive care unit and pray,” Jones said. “A lot of people think they are going to get miracles and God is not giving them out this year. If you come to my intensive care unit, there is a good chance that you will die.
She said that strong steroids that have shown promise often make patients angrier.
“It’s like ‘roid rage on people,” she said. “I’ve been working in healthcare for 26 years. And I’ve seen something like this. seen the public act like that.
In the United States, the Covid-19 crisis has caused people to misbehave towards each other in multiple ways.
Several people have been shot and killed in disputes over masks in shops and other public places. Scuffles and scuffles broke out during school board meetings. A fight broke out earlier this month at a New York City restaurant over the requirement that customers show proof of vaccination.
Dr Chris Sampson, an emergency physician in Columbia, Missouri, said violence has always been a problem in the emergency department, but the situation has worsened in recent months. Sampson said he was pushed against a wall and saw nurses kicked.
Dr Ashley Coggins of St. Peter’s Health Regional Medical Center in Helena, MT, said she recently asked a patient if they wanted to get the shot.
“He said ‘F, no’ and I didn’t ask for more because I personally don’t want to be yelled at,” Coggins said. “You know, it’s a strange time in our world, and the respect we had for each other, the respect people had for caregivers, doctors and nurses – it’s not always there, and that makes this work Stronger. “
Coggins said the patient told him he “wanted to strangle President Biden” for pushing for the vaccination, prompting him to change the subject. She said security guards are now responsible for enforcing mask rules for visitors to hospitals so nurses no longer have to tell people to leave.
Hostility makes an already stressful job more difficult. Many places suffer from severe staff shortages, in part because nurses have burned out and quit.
“I think one thing we’ve seen and heard from a lot of our people is that it’s really hard to come to work every day when people are treating each other badly,” said Dr Kencee Graves, medical doctor. at the University of Utah. Salt Lake City hospital.
“If you have to fight someone over wearing a mask, or if you’re not allowed to visit them and we have to argue about it, it’s stressful. “
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