There was no weapons detection system in place at the area of San Francisco General Hospital where a 31-year-old social worker was stabbed in the neck and shoulder by a patient Thursday, according to a hospital source.
The attack occurred in Ward 86, the long-term HIV care clinic, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff’s deputies recovered a 5-inch kitchen knife that was believed to have been used in the attack. The department said the 35-year-old male suspect had been in the hospital for a scheduled appointment and had reportedly made prior threats to a doctor at the hospital.
Law enforcement officers apprehended the suspect. Hospital staff performed lifesaving measures on the victim, who remains in critical condition.
SF General has two weapons detection systems at two main entrances, said the hospital source, but there is no such system in the outpatient clinics, where violence against staff regularly occurs.
“It’s deeply upsetting to have a front-line worker injured while doing their job serving our city,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement. “Our social workers spend every day helping struggling San Franciscans — they should never have to fear for their safety while doing that work.”
UCSF social workers have raised concerns about the dangerous conditions of their roles.
The attack highlights perennial concerns at San Francisco’s only safety-net hospital. The number of Sheriff’s Department staff posted at SF General has dropped from 45 in 2022 to 28, according to the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs Association. The change was made due to purported inequities (opens in new tab) in how force was used against the hospital’s patient population.
The Department of Public Health and its head of security, Basil Price, implemented a plan that replaced sworn sheriff’s officers with additional healthcare workers and sheriff cadets trained in healthcare security.
In a December 2021 email to the sheriff and hospital security head, an SEIU steward said she feared the lack of security would lead to a hospital worker getting hurt or killed.
“There are increasing problems. We do fear severe injury or death from violence at SFGH is imminent,” wrote Julie Molitor, who was a nurse in SF General’s emergency department at the time.
Between January 2020 and September 2021, there were 425 incidents of physical violence at SF General, according to data provided in the email thread.
In a message about the security issues sent several months earlier, Molitor wrote that staff “all expressed deep concern for severe injury and marked increase loss of staff due to fear of not making it safely through their shift at SFGH/SFDPH.”
Ken Lomba, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs Association, said he warned Price that the changes would put hospital workers at risk.
“I gave them the example that if a deputy is on the opposite side of the campus and an employee gets attacked on the 7th floor or roof of SFGH, the response time would be so long the employee would be dead,” Lomba said.
Price declined to comment.
The attack happened the same day that an inmate was stabbed at the county jail, which sent first responders flying by a press conference where Lurie was swearing in new San Francisco Police Department Chief Derrick Lew.