Health Care Providers Are Often Victims Too.

In this blog, I often write about patients who have been injured as the result of malpractice at the hands of health care providers.  Increasingly, it is the other way around.  Here is an article from Politico about violence directed against providers in the emergency department.  It is a fact of life there and it is getting worse.  Perhaps the biggest reason for the dramatic rise in incidents is the opioid crisis.  More and more people going to emergency rooms looking for opioid pain medication are being turned away for doctor shopping.  An addict already in great distress often does not react well to being told they will not be receiving any pills and that they will have to leave.  There are a number of reasons we should all be very concerned about the problem of violence in the emergency department.

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The first reason is simple compassion for a fellow human being.  The people who work in the emergency department are almost always dedicated professionals who work long and difficult hours to be there for us when we have a real or potential emergency.  They are well-trained for the most part and work in an environment that is stressful under the best of circumstances.  They never know if the next few minutes will bring them a flood of victims from some sort of mass tragedy.  They work hard.  They deserve our respect and a safe place to work.

The second reason for our concern is that the surge in violence has forced hospitals to increase the presence of security in the emergency department and throughout the hospital.  This level of security does not come cheap and is added on to bills that can already be staggering.  According to the Politico article, the hospital industry spent $1.5 billion in 2016 on security and other needs directly related to emergency department violence.

Third is the fact that other patients in the emergency department can end up as victims of violence directed at the ER staff or just directed randomly.  I certainly don’t want to be present when another patient goes off and I am sure you do not either.

Lastly, concerns about violence, about personal safety and about drug seeking patients can only diminish the quality of the care delivered in the emergency department.  Anything that causes suspicion on the part of providers or comes between them and the patients they are trying to help interferes with the delivery of care.

Regrettably, there is little we as individuals can do to address this problem.  The best we can do is recognize that the opioid crisis is eating at our country from the inside.  Lives are being lost, children are being traumatized, the economy is being damaged by lost productivity and so on and so on.  We need to stop the creation of new addicts and we need to get treatment for those already addicted.

 

Posted in Doctors, General Health, Health Care Costs, Hospitals, Medical Costs, Nurses |