'Is it going to take one of my members actually being killed on the job in order for some substantive changes to take place?'
One nurse in British Columbia was injured after being attacked by a patient earlier this month.
The incident happened on March 13 at the inpatient psychiatry unit at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), according to a CBC report.
"One of our members ... a nurse new in her career, was strangled unconscious and had to be dragged behind the nursing station to safety by her colleagues," Adriane Gear, the president of the B.C. Nurses' Union, said, according to the report.
"The person that strangled her was a patient."
The psychiatry inpatient units at the hospital are in a separate building. And, as it is, it takes several minutes for security staff to get there from the emergency department, Gear said, according to the report.
"These are patients ... some of them have very concerning behaviours," Gear said, according to the CBC report. "They have well-documented histories of violence, and the employer needs to do more to keep their staff and the other patients safe."
Gear noted that there have been multiple incidents of patients attacking nurses in hospitals over the past few months, according to the report.
In November, a 48-year-old male patient attacked a student nurse, inflicting injuries described as non-life-threatening. That incident also happened at VGH. There was also the case of a machete-wielding man threatening staff at Eagle Ridge Hospital in Port Moody, according to CBC.
The union is now calling for more security officers in hospitals to prevent nurses from leaving the profession.
"What is it going to take? Is it going to take one of my members actually being killed on the job in order for some substantive changes to take place?" the union president asked.
The B.C. Nurses' Union had previously questioned the hospitals’ measures to prevent attacks against staff.
"There are policies around violence and violence prevention. Frankly, I don't think that they're adhered to," Gear said following the attack on the student nurse.
"It's not acceptable that nurses are being assaulted on the job, and it's absolutely not acceptable that student nurses who are entering our profession are subjected to such a risk."
Previously, the union noted that, on average, 26 nurses in B.C. suffer a violent injury at work each month, according to another CBC report.
