Emergency room nurses pay price for parked psych patients
A 2011 study of ER violence by the Emergency Nurses Association showed that over 48 percent of nurses said they had been grabbed or pulled, 41 percent said they had been punched or slapped, and 36 percent said they had been spit on. Smaller numbers said they were kicked, bitten, strangled, stabbed and even sexually assaulted. Nearly half of those assaults were committed by psych patients.
Violent behavior by patients, or their families, has always been a major challenge for ERs, because of the long waits, stressful circumstances and prevalence of drugs and alcohol. Throw in mentally unstable patients who are often held there for hours or days because there are no psych beds available and no psychiatrists in the hospital to evaluate them, and the situation can be explosive.
Peter Anderson, an emergency room physician who works at three hospitals in Orange County, says one of his fellow physicians was choked by a patient who had been in the ER for five days.