
Nurses rally against violence from patients, family members
The violence ranges from verbal confrontations to physical assaults that patients and family members inflict on hospital, clinic and at-home health care workers, said Bonnie Castillo, a director at National Nurses United, the country’s largest nursing labor union.
At the head of the crowd during a recent rally in Tampa, Castillo read off statistics that the Journal of Emergency Nursing published last year, including 76 percent — the number of nurses with at least 10 years of experience who experienced some form of workplace assault in 2013 alone, the year the study was conducted. “Seventy-six percent!” echoed a rally organizer.