Family of Harrington stabbing victim testifies in favor of safety assessments
Sam Doran/State House News Service
Clifton Wilson's wife, a nurse, is recovering after she was stabbed last month at Harrington Hospital. Wilson and his wife's colleagues testified Wednesday in support of a bill to require safety assessments at medical facilities.
After a nurse was stabbed at Harrington Hospital last month, the Southbridge facility installed medical detectors and implemented other safety reforms.
On Wednesday, nurse Elise Wilson's colleagues and husband visited the State House and asked lawmakers to require annual safety assessments at all medical facilities.
"I'm very relieved to report that she is recovering. She had 11 stab wounds and almost bled to death," Clifton Wilson, Elise's husband, told the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. Wilson testified in favor of legislation (S 1374) backed by the Massachusetts Nurses Association that the union said would require health care employers to perform risk assessments annually and take steps to minimize the danger of workplace violence.
"We have 128 co-sponsors of this bill," said Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat and registered nurse. She said, "This bill has been introduced to this Legislature since 2009. It is incomprehensible to me that there is any resistance to this bill."
The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association (MHA) contends that policies are in place to prevent violence at hospitals and the bill would duplicate ongoing efforts with possible detrimental effects.
"The current proposed legislation is problematic because it would create duplication of, and in some cases conflicts with, existing processes and requirements," said Pat Noga, a registered nurse and MHA's vice president for clinical affairs, in a statement. "The proposed legislation could weaken safety precautions that now minimize risks for patients and healthcare personnel. The last thing that everyone who's working collaboratively to ensure safe hospital environments needs is conflict and confusion, particularly when it could lead to a step backward."
Garlick, who said nurses are often groped and physically and verbally assaulted, said hospital safety planning would be improved by the bill, which also entitles hospital staff who have been assaulted at work up to seven days of leave.
"Plans that are not updated annually, that do not have training, for whom no one is responsible for implementation, and environments that fail to recognize that assaulted persons need care post-assault, are not real plans," Garlick said. Garlick's identical bill (H 1007) had a hearing in April before the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development.
Tracy DiGregorio, a registered nurse and Wilson's colleague, said Harrington installed metal detectors and panic buttons, and the hospital is in the process of locking down its perimeter. She read a statement from Wilson that said, "Things at my hospital have changed immediately, but there are so many other health care workers out there getting threatened and assaulted every day."
MHA said hospitals' safety policies are constantly updated and the facilities are committed to "constant vigilance."
"Hospitals across the commonwealth have well-established and stringent policies and procedures in place to address workplace violence, with oversight from state and federal accreditation bodies and regulators," Noga said in her statement. She said, "But while current policies are strong and sound, hospitals cannot foresee absolutely every situation that might arise in a 24-hour-a-day setting that is based on ensuring public access."
Under the bill, health care employers would need to designate a senior manager to develop an in-house crisis team to respond to workplace violence. Health employers who violate safety planning requirements could be fined $2,000 per violation, under the bill.
Dr. Mark Kenton, who works at Harrington Hospital and Springfield's Mercy Medical Center, said assaults on medical staff are on the rise, linking the increase to the state's opioid epidemic and saying patients can become violent when they are denied prescription painkillers.
"When we say no, in many cases we get yelled at, hit, spit on, kicked and punched," said Kenton. Kenton described Wilson's attacker as someone who was "unhappy he didn't receive pain medication" and who sat in his car sharpening his knife before entering the hospital and attacking the nurse.
The emergency physician invited the committee - chaired by Millbury Sen. Michael Moore and Clinton Rep. Harold Naughton - to tour his workplace.
"I'll put you in scrubs. I'll put you in triage. I'll put you in the psychiatric department," Kenton said. "I'll let you watch a heroin overdose be reversed with Narcan and watch that patient wake up swinging at us."
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