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The most recent assault on a UPMC nurse happened nine months after a gunman entered the ICU at UPMC Memorial in York and took staff hostage. West York police Officer Andrew Duarte was killed in the cross fire that day. His funeral was held on Feb. 28 in Red Lion, York County.
\nDan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.comDan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com<\/p>\n
UPMC Altoona nurses have launched a statewide petition across health systems, including SEIU members, to draw attention to their demands for workplace safety.<\/p>\n
Last week, during an online press conference, UPMC Altoona nurses described what they said is a crisis in workplace safety and staffing. Those conditions put nurses at risk of violence and injury, the nurses said.<\/p>\n
Travis Dunn, a nurse at UPMC Altoona, was left unconscious on the floor with multiple injuries to the head and face after an emergency room patient became violent. <\/p>\n
Bradley Lloyd, 40, faces a list of charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe assault on Travis is a symptom of a larger staffing crisis at Altoona,\u201d said Jamie Balsamo, registered nurse at the hospital who works in the cardiac catheterization lab. <\/p>\n
\u201cUPMC executives have broken their promise to invest in our community. We have 300 fewer nurses since UPMC took over at Altoona and most of our security proposals we\u2019ve made in contract negotiations have been repeatedly denied by executives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Healthcare workers, she noted, suffer more non-fatal injuries than any other profession, including law enforcement. Adequate staffing levels are critical for safety, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re severely understaffed the way that we are, we\u2019re less able to communicate with our patients, less able to de-escalate potentially violent situations or even respond to them if they occur, and both patients and family members become more aggravated,\u201d Balsamo said.<\/p>\n
She said that UPMC, the largest health system and private employer in the commonwealth, has the \u201cmoral responsibility\u201d to lead on safety. <\/p>\n
Seven hospital workers were injured in the February deadly shooting at UPMC York Memorial, which did not have metal detectors installed in the ICU<\/a> at the time of the shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cNurses have been asking for protection for decades,\u201d said Jackie Keeney, a 41-year nursing veteran at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. \u201cIt always seems to take sentinel events for something to happen. ..the police officer was a young man, and it was (his mother\u2019s) only child. If they would have (had metal detectors) at UPMC, I feel like that young man would have never gotten in, and probably the situation would not have happened.\u201d <\/p>\n UPMC nurses have for months, if not years, been calling attention to workplace inefficiencies. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a topic and a conversation that\u2019s very present in the front of every nurse, really, every healthcare worker\u2019s mind,\u201d said Jean Stone, a nurse at UPMC Magee-Women\u2019s Hospital in Pittsburgh. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunately not an unusual thing to have happen, whether it\u2019s verbal abuse or threats or in the most extreme cases, physical attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone describes tense exchanges with patients and family members, even under the best of circumstances, that set up potentially volatile and violent scenarios on a routine basis.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I would say that the experience of having an agitated patient or family member who is, you know, saying nasty, insulting things to you is a daily occurrence,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing special.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, UPMC nurses told PennLive that acute staffing shortages were putting patients at risk <\/a>and burdening nurses with a slew of stressors that impact their ability to care for patients and stay committed to their jobs.<\/p>\n Balsamo said UPMC has rejected the nurses\u2019 contract proposals, including installing panic alarms in all departments and weapons detection systems at every public entrance, in addition to increased security personnel.<\/p>\n Other proposals include safe staffing and retention, adopting and posting a zero-tolerance policy for verbal and physical abuse.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only area where UPMC has signaled agreement is including workplace violence to our monthly agenda for our labor management meetings,\u201d Balsamo said. \u201cSo in other words, they\u2019ve agreed to more talk.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email to PennLive, UPMC officials acknowledged that violence against health care workers is rising across the country.<\/p>\n UPMC said that under the guidance of national security experts, the health system has made \u201chundreds of safety upgrades\u201d this past year, including more frequent de-escalation and workplace violence prevention training, more signage reinforcing our zero-tolerance policy, panic buttons, secure rooms, active drills, limited access points and additional entrance technologies such as metal detectors, as well as expanded public safety and police officer presence to immediately support our teams whenever concerns arise. <\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to evolve those efforts with guidance from security experts and direct feedback from our team members,\u201d UPMC said. \u201cAnd beyond these visible steps \u2014 there are others, designed with the quiet precision that true security requires. The best protection can be the kind you don\u2019t see and is wisely kept from those who do harm. We are putting every resource, every ounce of expertise, to safeguard the people who give so much of themselves to care for others.\u201d<\/p>\n A study published this year by the American Hospital Association found that violence, including workplace (in-facility)<\/a> and community violence, abuse, and threatening behavior, has significantly increased in the U.S. over the past decade, with rising rates of assault, homicide, suicide, and firearm violence.<\/p>\n U.S. healthcare workers are five times more likely to suffer a workplace violence injury<\/a> than workers in other industries. Healthcare workers accounted for 73% <\/a>of all nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses due to violence in 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n Keeney said Hershey Medical has established \u201cde-escalation teams\u201d that allow nurses to remain focused on their work rather than diffusing volatile situations.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only does it mean people who know how to pull people down, but it lets the nurse be out and take care of the patients,\u201d she said. \u201cOtherwise, you\u2019re standing in there for sometimes hours, and all your work gets behind, and the patients are not getting their meds on time. They\u2019re not getting their needs fulfilled. So that was a good, positive thing. But again, we always have to have a sentinel event. We have to be proactive.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone said UPMC has installed metal detectors at all entrances, not just the emergency room, which was the case for years.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to frame these things as a win,\u201d Stone said. \u201cIt is a win in that it was a necessary addition. But it\u2019s really bare minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n Magee Women\u2019s is an urban hospital, she noted, and should not have had to wait years to get metal detectors installed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe things that nurses ask for are not really the things that are being implemented,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n UPMC\u2019s health care network<\/a>, which includes more than 40 hospitals, has posted an improved financial report so far this year due to a higher number of patients and \u201ccontinued operational efficiency efforts,\u201d according TribLive.<\/p>\n UPMC earned $349 million<\/a> in the first half of 2025, TribLive reported.<\/p>\n That figure represents a sizeable improvement after the health and hospital system lost almost as much money by the same point last year, the report said.<\/p>\n Total revenue hit $16.5 billion this year, compared to $14.5 billion last year at the halfway point.<\/p>\n The health system has come under scrutiny for its CEO compensation<\/a> and use of a $50 million luxury jet<\/a> while laying off frontline workers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are tired of being ignored and treated like disposable numbers,\u201d said Kevin Clark, a 15-year UPMC Altoona nurse.<\/p>\n \u201cThe time for talking is over, and the time for action has come. Sadly, no one was surprised by this attack, but I hope to God that this has been a wakeup call to executives, and this catastrophic event can serve as a beacon for change so we can guard against this kind of nightmare happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nurses at Pennsylvania\u2019s biggest hospital system are mounting grievances against their corporate owners concerning workplace safety and violence.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-312660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}