{"id":743439,"date":"2026-06-17T20:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/743439\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T20:22:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:22:44","slug":"display-at-st-joes-hamilton-highlights-abuse-against-healthcare-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/743439\/","title":{"rendered":"Display at St. Joe\u2019s Hamilton highlights abuse against healthcare workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to healthcare officials at St. At Joseph\u2019s Hospital Hamilton, at least four staff members are verbally or physically assaulted everyday and they say the number is likely higher because not all victims report issues.<\/p>\n

A display at St. Joe\u2019s for the next few weeks explains how big of a problem workplace violence is at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Hospital workers say they are yelled at or abused by patients daily and one woman even said she is worried that angry patients follow her to her car at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really thought if I said anything it meant I was weak, it meant I was bad at my job,\u201d says Javaria Bhatty who has worked in healthcare for about four years.<\/p>\n

She runs an exercise rehab program at St. Joseph\u2019s Hospital for people with different medical issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can expect a comment at least daily. People talking about wanting to grab me, someone trying to slap my butt, things like that,\u201d says Bhatty.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not alone, everyday at least four hospital workers are assaulted at St. Joe\u2019s, roughly 1,400 a year, and hospital officials say those numbers don\u2019t reflect the unreported incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey either hit, kick, yell, call someone a racial slur or even sexually touch a staff member,\u201d says Michael Heenan, CEO of St. Joseph\u2019s Health System.<\/p>\n

WATCH MORE: Hamilton doctor writes, performs song about his battle with cancer<\/a><\/p>\n

The exhibit in the hospital lobby is to show the public how big of a problem violence in the workplace is for healthcare workers.<\/p>\n

\u201c61 per cent of Canadian nurses will be assaulted at some point in their career. Here at St. Joe\u2019s. We want to talk about it because if we can talk openly about improving the quality of work-life for staff, we are going to improve the care the patients receive,\u201d says Heenan.<\/p>\n

Staff say they\u2019ve experienced either physical or verbal assaults on an almost daily basis and one woman said she had someone follow her to her car at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had patients threaten me and my safety. I\u2019ve had to navigate how I walk to my car. Always having eyes over my shoulder to see what\u2019s happening, if anyone is following me,\u201d says Christina Bowman.<\/p>\n

Bowman worked as a front line nurse for 10 years before switching positions. She says it\u2019s gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have more patients in here who are on drugs, use drugs, bring drugs in, bring paraphernalia in. Mental health doesn\u2019t have as many resources in the community, so unfortunately we\u2019re dealing with a lot of mental health issues on units not equipped to deal with mental health,\u201d says Bowman.<\/p>\n

Javaria Bhatty is open to sharing her experiences with new healthcare workers so they don\u2019t go through the mental trauma she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want them to have that burnout. I don\u2019t want a few bad people who have these verbal, physical abuses towards healthcare workers to be the reason why we lose good, quality healthcare workers,\u201d says Bhatty.<\/p>\n

Hospital officials say the daily abuse has led to higher levels of absenteeism, and unfortunately healthcare workers leaving their profession.<\/p>\n

WATCH MORE: Niagara police report sharp rise in domestic violence investigations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to healthcare officials at St. At Joseph\u2019s Hospital Hamilton, at least four staff members are verbally or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-743439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}