Sunday, November 12, 2023

Protecting Healthcare Workers against Violence

CLAC adopts resolution to fight violence against healthcare workers at its National Convention, held December 6 to 8 in Lake Louise, Alberta

Newsletters Ontario Healthcare

By Ryan Griffioen, Representative

For far too long healthcare workers in retirement homes, long term care homes, homecare, group homes, and hospitals have believed that the violence they suffer at the hands of residents, patients, and clients is part of the job.

Additionally, a great many will tell anyone who will listen not to take jobs in healthcare due to the understaffing and violence they endure. And this message has spread. The worker shortage in healthcare grows more acute every day, and working short is one of the main contributing factors to workplace violence in healthcare.

The problem is particularly acute in long term care and retirement homes where far too many abused workers are threatened by their employer that if they refuse to care for a violent resident, they will be disciplined for neglect or resident abuse.

I am excited about the development of staff and member training to educate our healthcare heroes to the fact that this can’t be farther from the truth. Your right to refuse unsafe work is no less applicable to you than it is to our workers in the manufacturing, construction, transportation, or retail sectors. Your employer’s obligation to provide you a safe workspace is not diminished by the fact that you have to provide care for the elderly and disabled.

Violent residents in long term care, unlike in a hospital setting, are rarely physically restrained or medicated to manage their behaviour because they have rights within their residence/home. This blanket rule removes a safety control that could keep you from experiencing violence at the hands of residents.

But what about the rights of the healthcare workers? How can the individual right of the resident outweigh the right of their caregiver to a safe workspace?

Assault is assault in the eyes of the law, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires employers to take all reasonable precautions to ensure the safety of their employees.

We need new public awareness campaigns to shed a brighter light on the increasingly unsafe working conditions of our healthcare membership. And we need to draft public policy papers to persuade government to make the necessary legislative and regulatory changes required to force employers to put in place the policies, procedures, mechanisms, and training—as well as hire enough staff—so that you and your coworkers not only feel safe, but actually are safe as you perform your work for those under your care.

Protecting Healthcare Workers against Violence

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