Health care workers’ safety increasingly at risk
Published by THE COLUMBIAN on 4/29/18 (Source)
Violent incidents against nurses, others on the rise at local hospitals
Shannon Sathre was supposed to have the day off, but a staff shortage and the prospect of time-and-a-half pay lured her from her couch into the intensive care unit at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center.
Hours into that Dec. 20 overtime shift, one of Sathre’s patients lashed out, kicking the 49-year-old registered nurse multiple times in the chest, according to a Vancouver Police Department report.
That violent encounter wasn’t the first for Sathre, who has been a nurse for more than 20 years, and it wasn’t the only workplace violence incident at the hospital last year. Sathre’s incident was one of 147 incidents reported to PeaceHealth Southwest administrators in 2017.