SUDBURY - Until recently I worked at the hospital from time to time. I’d enter via a staff entrance, slide down a side hallway and enter the operating room. Didn’t spend any time in public areas.
Speaking to the nurses, some of whom I’ve known for years, they continue to make the same complaints. Sure they’re upset about a stagnant pay scale. But the real issues are working conditions, like excessive hours, too many patients for the number of staff working and most of all, work place abuse. Indeed, some have been so battered by patients that they’ve become patients. And some of these are unable to return to work.
Their stories of abuse are almost never told.
Recently, I had a turn at becoming a patient and seeing three other doctors. In every office and patient encounter area I saw prominent signs saying that verbal and physical abuse would not be tolerated. At the hospital there were similar signs but with an addition, that being that weapons were prohibited and that the police or “other authorities” would be called if necessary.
What happened?
When did our culture change to the point that we need to have signs proclaiming that verbal abuse, physical aggression and weapons (which I’m sure aren’t legally registered) will not be tolerated in a place of healing?
It made me want to look over my shoulder, a new experience for me.
The recent experience in Halifax — health care workers being stabbed in the emergency department — doesn’t come as a surprise to me. What is surprising is the stabbings that took place in Sudbury last year at an outreach clinic, remained largely unreported.
Why do we ignore this? Are we doing it on purpose? Is that our expectation for health-care workers?
Now imagine people working in that kind of an environment and we should begin to understand certain things about the health-care system.
Most people who enter into health care as a vocation do so because they care about others. They feel that their respect for other humans would be reflected by those they serve.
Ask any nurse or personal support worker, or doctor who’s been around the block a few times, how they feel about their chosen field of work, and the answer is often a surprise — that being, if they had to do it again, they would make a different choice.
It’s not hard to understand. If a health-care provider of any stripe wanted to be subject to verbal and physical abuse as well as violence aimed at them, without recourse to complain or retaliate, they would have signed up for work on the front lines of Ukraine or Gaza.
They didn’t expect that here in Canada, here in the true north strong and free where anybody can inflict a hit on a health care worker, without fear of consequence or reprisal.
So, we wonder why nurses are leaving the profession in droves? We wonder why few people still go into family medicine? Not to mention the other issues holding doctors back.
Maybe the answer is, this is the health care system we deserve. After all, would a worker at Vale or Glencore tolerate verbal or physical abuse and be told to suck it up, learn how to duck?
If we want people to work in health care, we need to show a little bit of appreciation and respect.
I notice Canadians have a Bill of Rights. All manner of vocations have a Bill of Rights. Health-care workers don’t. Perhaps it’s time for a Health Care Worker’s Bill of Rights.
Maybe it’s time to get tough with the assailants, not the health care workers.
Dr. Klaus Jakelski is a retired family physician and author, who remains active in long-term care. He resides in Greater Sudbury.