National Emergency Nurses Week
This week, from October 9-15, is National Emergency Nurses Week and if I could wave a magic wand and give all nurses a gift in honor of this week, it would be the gift of safe working conditions!
Most of us know a nurse as a friend, family member, or as someone who was there in a time of great need, but what many people don’t know is how dangerous a profession nursing can be. These amazing and unsung heroes are on the front lines of health care, meeting with patients and families at the worst times of their lives and in the process, nurses are all too often left vulnerable to accidental and even violent injury.
As a community, we need to do more to protect nurses and care for them when they get hurt at work.
According to the bureau of labor statistics (BLS), nurses suffer a significantly higher number of injuries than the average occupation. In 2016, The US Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (BLS) found nurses received injuries that required at least one day away from work at a rate of 104.2 cases per 10,000 full-time workers, while the rest of the workforce was injured at a rate of 91.7 cases per 10,000 workers. This means that on any given day, nurses are 9% more likely to be injured than the average worker.
Most nursing injuries are incurred by female RN’s who sustained 91.2% of the total injury and illness cases estimated to have occurred within the occupation in 2016. This finding doesn’t seem to support a finding that women are more likely to be hurt, but instead, is simply a reflection of the fact that the profession is heavily filled by women.
The most likely cause of injury is as a result of overexertion and violence in the workplace. Talk to any nurse and chances are if they’ve been in the profession for more than a few years they’ve been hit, kicked, punched or even spit at. Moreover, they’ve been exposed to illness and contagion, and the older they get, the more likely it is that they’ve suffered some sort of joint or back injury as a result of overexertion.
Injuries due to overexertion should be no surprise as anyone who has been in a hospital has seen how nurses are constantly working with patients with limited mobility who need help moving, toileting, and getting in and out of bed. However, the risk of injury due to violence is not as well known and these injuries result in not just physical symptoms, but can cause significant emotional trauma as well.
Nurses and especially ER nurses, work closely with patients who are in crisis and therefore prone to violent outbursts as a result of their illness or medical condition. Patients’ and families in crisis are not always at their best either and they can lash out verbally and physically at the first person they see, and in the ER that is often their nurse. What makes this all the more dangerous is that given the rise of nursing shortages, nurses are often placed in these difficult and even dangerous situations without adequate support.
These statistics are disturbing, but at the same time, an indication that there is hope and that demands and support for better working conditions could dramatically reduce these injuries. We can do more than thank our nurses this week. Thank a nurse, but also, consider what action you can take as a patient, a partner, a community member and consumer of health care, to improve the lives of those who care for us in our greatest moment of need. Join nurses in demanding safer work conditions and in making sure they are given the benefits they need if and when they do get hurt helping us.
