California Governor Signs Bill to Prevent Hospital Violence
The bill focuses on mitigating risk factors and requires incidents of violence to be reported to Cal/OSHA.
The California Nurses Association (CNA) is praising Governor Jerry Brown for his decision to sign a CNA-sponsored bill that will require hospitals to increase their efforts to prevent workplace violence. The bill, known as SB 1299, also requires hospitals to document and report incidents of violence to Cal/OSHA.
“At a time when we have seen far too many disturbing incidents of violence in California health facilities, this legislation will go a long way to assuring a safe and healing environment for patients, families, visitors, and RNs and other hospital staff,” said CNA Co-President Deborah Burger, RN, in a prepared statement.
Burger also noted that rather than simply imposing additional penalties on perpetrators of violence, the focus of the bill is prevention through proper staff training and mitigation factors that can stop violence before it occurs.
A study by the US Labor Bureau shows that health care workers, and registered nurses in particular, are five times more likely to be the victim of an assault or violent act by another person, than a worker in another industry.
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