Caring for kids can be emotional. But it should never be violent.
My colleagues and I are proud to have recently advocated the Florida Legislature in support of HB
825. This bill calls for a reclassification of certain offenses committed against health care personnel while engaged in performance of their duties.Those of us who become doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, among many other types of healthcare professionals that staff our hospitals, do so because we believe passionately that our work alleviates suffering and makes life better for our patients and their families. In pediatrics, we dedicate our lives to keeping healthy kids healthy, minimizing suffering for children when they get sick, and curing disease.
Every day, I am amazed and proud of the devotion, empathy, and commitment I see in our team members in every department of our hospital and clinics at Nemours Children’s Health.
Unfortunately, part of the job of a pediatric health care professional is dealing with very difficult issues, such as talking with patients and parents about devastating diagnoses — at times, diagnoses for which there is no treatment or cure. We often see children who have suffered from physical or emotional abuse requiring intervention from state agencies. Compounding these difficult parts of our jobs is that healthcare professionals are dealing with record numbers of sick children coming through the emergency room, intensive care unit, and other areas of the hospital.
We understand that these difficulties and surges are the hard parts of the professions we have chosen, and they are outweighed by the great days, when we help a child recover from an illness and go home safely with family. Unfortunately, we are facing increasing levels of violence and anger directed toward our physicians and nurses to the point where it has become intolerable for some.
In the last several years, we have had more family members becoming irrationally angry about typical healthcare interactions. Some threaten to harm physicians physically and to prevent them from practicing medicine in the future, over seemingly minor perceived issues. We have had families threaten the lives of our physicians, to the point where around-the-clock armed personal bodyguards are required to ensure safety. Associates have been spat on, threatened with guns, and barricaded in clinics. We have had team members suffer unimaginable racist and sexist verbal abuse from angry family members. Healthcare workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence than in any other industry. We have massively increased our spending on escalating our security posture – funds that otherwise could have been spent on resources for patient care. Our state is already facing significant shortages of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals due to increasing demand as well as burnout within the healthcare industry. I fear that the escalating frequency and severity of assault and battery that our associates are facing will lead to even further loss of vital experience and expertise from our workforce, ultimately negatively impacting our ability to care for our community.
Reclassifying violent offenses against healthcare workers to allow for harsher punishments makes an important statement that the state of Florida values our healthcare workers and does not tolerate these increasingly prevalent disruptive behaviors. A hospital should be a place of peace, caring, healing, and serenity. Violence and aggressive behavior have no place within hospital walls.
I joined my colleague Dr. Laura Chilcutt in Tallahassee to advocate for this important legislation. Nemours commends Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez and Representative Kimberly Berfield for filing this needed legislation, and we are grateful that it passed overwhelmingly with bi-partisan support. We thank the Florida House and Senate for passing this needed legislation and hope that Governor DeSantis will sign this important bill to help protect our healthcare providers.