The Star (Toronto, Canada), November 29, 2007

CHANGES DEMANDED AFTER NURSES ATTACKED

[Rachel's introduction: In Canada, "The nurses' union is calling on the provincial government to write the 'precautionary principle' into the Occupational Health and Safety Act, something the late Justice Archie Campbell recommended in his SARS report earlier this year."]

By Joanna Smith, Staff Reporter

The Ontario Nurses' Association is calling for a change in workplace safety legislation after three registered nurses were attacked on duty at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health earlier this month.

"We've got to make it stop now," union president Linda Haslam-Stroud told reporters yesterday.

The attacks involved two separate patients and took place over two days at the CAMH site on Queen St. W.

"It was absolutely horrific for the staff that witnessed this," Danielle Latulippe-Larmand, the union representative for registered nurses at CAMH, said in an interview.

One of the nurses had his shoulder broken when he was attacked in the nursing station after a patient jumped over a half-door around 2 a.m. Nov. 13, Latulippe-Larmand said. A nurse who witnessed the attack was also pulled down and beaten.

Another registered nurse had his jaw broken when he was head-butted and punched while in a lounge area shortly before 5 a.m. on Nov. 14, Latulippe-Larmand said.

She said an agency nurse -- who is not represented by the union -- was attacked next and the first nurse went to help her.

All three ended up in the nursing station and when security personnel arrived, they could not help out because they needed to be buzzed in.

"He was bleeding, he was dazed, he was confused and he was unable to press the buzzer to open the door," she said of the nurse with the broken jaw.

"Hopefully this kind of stuff will never, never happen again," said Latulippe-Larmand, who recalled suffering a hairline fracture when a patient punched her in the nose at the outset of her career more than 20 years ago.

"We're actually very lucky that in both incidents we did not end up with a dead nurse."

The Ministry of Labour is investigating both incidents.

Rani Srivastava, deputy chief of nursing practice at CAMH, said security is now able to access the units without being buzzed in and CAMH is also reviewing the issue of patients being able to jump over half-doors.

The union is calling on the provincial government to write the "precautionary principle" into the Occupational Health and Safety Act, something the late Justice Archie Campbell recommended in his SARS report earlier this year.

"Until the precautionary principle is fully recognized, mandated and enforced, our nurses and the health care workers across Ontario are going to be continued to be injured and be killed on the job," said Haslam-Stroud.

She said 36 per cent of nurses who responded to a union survey last year reported being physically abused on the job recently. Sixty-seven per cent reported verbal abuse and 11 per cent said they were sexually abused.

"Workplace violence is something that we consider to be unacceptable. We as a government are committed to doing anything we can to address the issues that exist in the workplaces," said Ontario Labour Minister Brad Duguid.

"It is the responsibility of employers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to take every precaution to protect the health and safety of their employees and that applies as well to issues of violence; however, we'll certainly be happy to sit down and talk to the nurses about their concerns," he said.