Hospital workers have reportedly seen an increase in instances of workplace violence, leading some healthcare professionals to found a group dedicated to raising awareness about the issue.
Sandra Risoldi started Nurses Against Violence after allegedly being denied help from her supervisor to assist with a potentially violent patient. When she subsequently returned to the patient’s room, he kicked the door at her in an attempt to escape.
“He probably would’ve smashed my head to pieces on the ground … He was jumping over things to try to get out,” she claimed.
The incident inspired Risoldi to form Nurses Against Violence. In seminars across the county, she seeks to identify warning signs in potentially violent patients and teach nurses de-escalation and self-defense techniques.
The website for Nurses Against Violence explains, “our aim is to promote mental wellness, support all healthcare workers – with a nursing focus, promote our violence prevention training, and assist nursing facilities/educational settings to understand and accept the fundamentals of violence prevention.”
Additionally, Risoldi structures her seminars as therapeutic experiences. In many cases, nurses experience traumatic events but receive little help themselves. Risoldi suggested that “everybody has a breaking point.”
Over 75% of nurses reported encountering some sort of workplace violence, according to a study conducted in 2014. Additionally, in the second quarter of 2022, over 5,000 nurses were reportedly assaulted while at work.
In 2018, a Texas Health and Human Services survey revealed that less than half of nurses in the state consider their hospital safe. Moreover, less than half knew their employer had violence prevention programs.
The Texas Department of State Health Services anticipates that the state will be more than 57,000 nurses short by 2032.
For Risoldi, however, the problem is not a “nursing shortage” it is that “we have nurses that are tired of being treated terribly.”
