Vermont nurses press for statewide standards as committee reviews H.259 on hospital workplace violence prevention

Nurses and nursing leaders told the Vermont House Committee on Health Care on Oct. 12 that workplace violence in hospitals has grown into a crisis and asked lawmakers to pass H.259, a bill that would require hospitals to adopt standardized workplace-violence prevention programs, oversight committees that include direct-care staff, annual risk assessments, de-escalation training and trauma-informed victim support.

Elizabeth Kudo, a nurse of 16 years and the Government Affairs Committee chair for the Emergency Nurses Association of Vermont, told the committee that “workplace violence is now considered a pandemic in our field,” and described repeated assaults, stabbings and high levels of underreporting. She cited the Bureau of Labor Statistics finding that workers in “healthcare and social services” are about five times more likely to be assaulted than those in other occupations and said national reporting shows “every hour, three healthcare providers are assaulted.”

The testimony framed workplace violence as a driver of staffing shortages and reduced hospital capacity. Kudo described long emergency-department wait times, shrinking outpatient and behavioral-health resources and rising use of contract nurses as contributors to stress and…