{"id":530278,"date":"2026-03-18T06:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/530278\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:18:12","slug":"health-workers-lobby-for-law-change-as-they-face-increasing-violence-on-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/530278\/","title":{"rendered":"Health workers lobby for law change as they face increasing violence on the job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years\u00a0ago, when nurse Danielle Bobek was working a shift in the emergency room, she revived a patient from a drug overdose. The woman responded by twisting Bobek\u2019s arm, causing a sprain.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe then threatened to come after me and my family,\u201d Bobek recalled.<\/p>\n

This is one of many violent episodes Bobek said she has experienced in her decades-long career. She\u2019s seen colleagues suffer concussions and fractures after being attacked while working at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Patients sometimes lash out because they are angry, desperate or scared. Some may be distrustful of the medical system. Others are in the throes of a mental health crisis. But with violent incidents on the rise, doctors and nurses like Bobek are demanding stronger protections \u2014 and tougher penalties for those who intentionally assault them.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, health care workers don’t feel supported,\u201d said Bobek, associate chief nursing officer at Cambridge Health Alliance. \u201cI should not have to fear for my own personal safety when I\u2019m taking care of somebody. It\u2019s not part of the job, and it\u2019s not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

After years of inaction, the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved legislation aimed at addressing this last November<\/a>. The bill awaits a vote in the Senate.<\/p>\n

The legislation \u2014 which has support from hospital executives, labor unions and physician groups \u2014 would bring Massachusetts in line with more than 30 other states by classifying assault on a health care worker as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor. This change would allow police to arrest people for attacking health care workers, even if officers did not witness the assault, and would impose stricter penalties on those convicted.<\/p>\n

The legislation would also allow workers who are assaulted to take time off to recover from their injuries and pursue charges in court.\u00a0And it would require hospitals to improve their prevention measures.<\/p>\n

Violent outbursts sometimes happen when patients are in a crisis and unable to fully control their actions. They may experience hallucinations or other mental health symptoms that affect their behavior.<\/p>\n

Danna Mauch, president of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, said she\u2019s concerned that people in these circumstances could be punished unfairly for their mental health conditions. The bill would allow a prison sentence of up to five years for an assault \u2014 and 10 years if the attack causes a serious injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty severe penalty,\u201d Mauch said<\/p>\n

Supporters of the legislation say it is intended to hold accountable people who are knowingly and willingly committing assault \u2014 not to stigmatize patients with mental health conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of assaults that are not mental health-related, that are out of anger and aggression,\u201d said Dr. Benjamin Milligan, chief of emergency medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance.<\/p>\n

Milligan said the bill would hold hospitals accountable by requiring them to study risks and strengthen policies for keeping workers safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be an ongoing process,\u201d he said, \u201cnot something that is just going to be done once, and the box is checked, and everybody moves on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA sign at the entrance of the Cambridge Hospital. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

Health care workers have long been a target of violence, but the problem appears to have worsened in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to state and national surveys, federal workforce data and interviews with workers.<\/p>\n

The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association estimates that a health care worker is verbally or physically assaulted in the state every 36 minutes, with the violence most commonly occurring in emergency departments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In interviews, doctors and nurses said patients sometimes punch them, throw objects, scream insults, or threaten to come after them with a gun. Visitors can become belligerent, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s happening every day in one of our emergency departments here in Massachusetts, someone is being assaulted,\u201d said Dr. Melisa Lai-Becker, \u200athe chief of emergency medicine for Mass General Brigham\u2019s community hospitals.<\/p>\n

Every incident adds trauma for an already burned-out workforce, she said: \u201cThe entire staff is getting mentally assaulted every time something like this happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a nurse, and I’ve learned that I’m the human punching bag for society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Smith, emergency department nurse<\/p>\n

Under current state law, police generally don\u2019t arrest someone for assaulting a health care worker unless officers witness the incident. So staff have to continue caring for the person who attacked them. And if they want to press charges, health care workers usually have to go to court and plead their case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve heard of colleagues that I work with getting physically assaulted, and it just goes nowhere,\u201d said Olivia Smith, a nurse who has worked in the emergency department at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital for 10 years. \u201cWe just move on and internalize it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Smith, a nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has spent 10 years working in the emergency department. She says she has faced verbal abuse and witnessed colleagues get attacked. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

Smith said a patient once tossed a can of ginger ale at her head, but fortunately missed. Another time, Smith said she watched a patient attack an emergency medical technician and had to call police for help.<\/p>\n

Verbal abuse, Smith said, occurs daily.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a nurse, and I’ve learned that I’m the human punching bag for society,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Smith and other health care workers described the steps they take to protect themselves: never turning their backs on a patient, standing near an exit, bringing along a colleague when the situation appears dicey. But she said this isn\u2019t enough \u2014 bigger changes are needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are more significant repercussions for the person doing the assault, it would be huge in our favor,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the state\u2019s hospital association, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the SEIU \u2014 a large union that represents health care workers \u2014 reached a consensus on legislation to protect workers. These organizations often disagree on major workplace issues, so their cooperation was significant. But state legislators didn’t act on the proposal.<\/p>\n

The bill was later reintroduced, and lawmakers now have until July 31 to take action before formal sessions end.<\/p>\n

Sen. Joan Lovely, a Salem Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she\u2019s optimistic it will get approval before that deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI don’t think we’ll ever eliminate assaults in the medical setting, but we certainly want to reduce them,\u201d Lovely said. \u201cAnd this is what this bill aims to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Years\u00a0ago, when nurse Danielle Bobek was working a shift in the emergency room, she revived a patient from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-530278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530278","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=530278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}