Althouse: "More than 80 percent of nurses experience workplace violence each year.... Almost all of these assaults are perpetrated by patients..."

February 4, 2026

"More than 80 percent of nurses experience workplace violence each year.... Almost all of these assaults are perpetrated by patients..."

"... though patients’ family members can also threaten our safety. People don’t realize that hospitals are increasingly dangerous places to work in. Because nurses spend more time than anyone else with patients, we often get the brunt of their anger with the health care industry, lack of adequate services and long wait times. Throughout my career, I have sustained many injuries and threats. In a recent eight-month period, I was scratched in the face (which left a scar that I cover with makeup daily), kicked in the chest so hard it left bruises, bitten multiple times and spat on. I’ve been pushed, sexually assaulted and punched. I’ve been thrown across the ambulance bay. I’ve had to hide marks of violence from my four young children so they don’t worry about me...."

Writes Sheryl Ostroff, in "Nurses Get Bitten, Spat on, Thrown. That’s Why We’re on Strike" (NYT).

78 comments:

Ampersand said...: Crime victims should report nontrivial crimes promptly.; 2/4/26, 11:43 AM
bagoh20 said...: Not many jobs where your customer is allowed to poop on you. A few, but not many.
That ain't right.; 2/4/26, 11:47 AM
Doc g said...: Pediatrician here in Racine. Recently we had two rival gangbangers show up in our waiting room. They immediately attacked each other. Cops got here quickly. Both felons carrying firearms-luckily they didn’t use them. Our security showed up 3 hours later. Our organization is going all out to cut costs. Security is one of the cuts. Safety is not a primary concern in healthcare.; 2/4/26, 11:49 AM
Lawnerd said...: Sounds like a number of felony assault and battery charges should have been filed. She should sue her employer for failing to provide a safe work environment.; 2/4/26, 11:57 AM
john mosby said...: You would think they'd sympathize with the police and federal agents, who endure similar. But no. Maybe it's wound envy. CC, JSM; 2/4/26, 12:02 PM
Enigma said...: This seems like one blue political hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

It's a delayed but direct consequence of single-parent homes, poor discipline in schools, allowing the mentally ill to fend for themselves, and the failure to prosecute and imprison the criminals (gangs here).; 2/4/26, 12:05 PM
Ice Nine said...: I practiced Emergency Medicine for 35yrs...tell me about it.

I quickly learned that certain patients have this distorted impression that because you are a medical practitioner of any sort that you are in a humanitarian role and that you are therefore passive, and that they are free to accentuate their needs aggressively, physically. I have been assaulted by two such patients -- and I reluctantly had to, in like manner, adjust their erroneous thinking for them. Followed by a call to the police, of course.; 2/4/26, 12:08 PM
MikeD said...: Sounds like she's employed as an emergency room nurse in an urban environment. You know, spaced out, drugged up and mentally ill street people; 2/4/26, 12:10 PM
Kevin said...: Apparently this is going both ways: The Mean Girl to Nursing Pipeline is real!; 2/4/26, 12:12 PM
Peachy said...: Know an firefighters or police in sketchy urban blue cities?
Same thing happens.; 2/4/26, 12:18 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: JSM said, "You would think they'd sympathize with the police and federal agents, who endure similar. But no."

Perhaps ICE officers could try coordinated dance routines on tiktok as a humanization strategy. Efficacy? Dubious.; 2/4/26, 12:19 PM
Beasts of England said...: I didn’t know there’s a ‘saliva’ tag. Maybe best if I don’t explore it.; 2/4/26, 12:20 PM
gadfly said...: The 80 percent of nurses who report workplace violence are all members of the NNU, the largest nurses union in the world. Their survey is designed only to attract more nurses to the union. The nurses that I know personally are sweetheart non-unionists from America's heartland who make all the money they wish to make, without supporting worthless unions. They are competent and well-trained in properly interacting and servicing patients.; 2/4/26, 12:21 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’The nurses that I know personally are sweetheart non-unionists from America's heartland who make all the money they wish to make, without supporting worthless unions…’

I am thrilled to agree with gadfly.; 2/4/26, 12:23 PM
boatbuilder said...: Her solution is not better security. It's more nurses. She says that California requires a ratio of one nurse to 4 patients (which is frankly insane).

Holy crap! I think I agree with Gadfly.

Pigs are flying around outside my window.; 2/4/26, 12:28 PM
stunned said...: “anger with health care industry”
Yes. But also an alarming increase in individuals who are character disordered, entitled, self absorbed, autistic/narcissistic, etc. Being angry doesn’t mean you have the right to bite someone. Normalizing autism and antisocial behaviors in general has a direct impact on nurses, who knew!; 2/4/26, 12:31 PM
Peachy said...: If I knew the staff were leftist... I'd get out. Get OUT.

My dad just got out of the hospital after a serious crisis. His care was amazing. Both male and female nurses. All great.
The final day of his stay, a sweet young gal with a small cross on her necklace took amazing care of him, and complemented him on his being such a nice patient.
it goes both ways.; 2/4/26, 12:36 PM
CT Ginger said...: I taught martial arts for ten years. I’ve had students who were MDs, paramedics and EMTs. They all had stories about patients who tried to hurt them. The most useful things I taught were how to break a grip, pressure points and joint locks. Administering Narcan was one of the most dangerous things they did since addicts being forced off their high became instantly and insanely angry.; 2/4/26, 12:37 PM
Peachy said...: gadfly - you surprise me.; 2/4/26, 12:38 PM
Humperdink said...: I’ve been in and out of the ER twice and in the hospital on 4 occasions in the last year. In all cases I made a conscious decision to treat all the nurses like gold. And they are. Very difficult job. Even when they woke me at 4AM to stick a needle in me. Interestingly, they treated me like gold also. I had one night shift nurse spend 30 with me helping to debug my iPad.; 2/4/26, 12:38 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I didn’t know there’s a ‘saliva’ tag. Maybe best if I don’t explore it."

There are about 44 posts with that tag, going back 22 years. Most probably involve spitting attacks but there could be something else.; 2/4/26, 12:42 PM
Peachy said...: Leftist Walzian communist Neo-Marxist asshole nurses are now going to harm ICE agents. Or refuse care. They promise. You're next.; 2/4/26, 12:42 PM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/4/26, 12:42 PM
James K said...: We’ve also get EMTALA, which requires all hospitals to treat anyone who comes into their ERs, with predictable results in urban blue hells. Often repeat visitors, either strung out on drugs, or neglecting their meds.; 2/4/26, 12:43 PM
RideSpaceMountain said...: @CT Ginger, the head of our ambulance district mentioned at a community seminar a few years back that their narcan record for a 'frequent flyer' was almost 200 times. Narcan is a fitting terminal example of our society's pathological empathy.; 2/4/26, 12:43 PM
Mary Beth said...: Those security people are going to be in a no-win situation. They will be expected to protect the hospital workers without doing anything to the troublemakers that would look bad on video. How long will it be before a nurse who felt threatened will decide that s/he wasn't really being threatened-threatened when the sad backstory of the aggressor comes out?

Maybe having people standing around who look intimidating will help. At least until a reporter does a story about how some poor unfortunate gang member didn't seek medical care because of the scary security guards.; 2/4/26, 12:43 PM
Quaestor said...: "That's why we're on strike."

Is stupidity now a requirement for an RN degree? The people who are biting, throwing, and spitting at nurses are not the people who pay for healthcare, yet Sheryl Ostroff's strikers are denying service to their best patients as if those who pay are guilty. The real targets of their complaint ought to be the Mamdanis and Newsoms, who are buying votes with their blood.; 2/4/26, 12:43 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’There are about 44 posts with that tag, going back 22 years.’

Alright, I’ll take a peek… :); 2/4/26, 12:44 PM
Jimmy said...: We have spent decades letting violent, rude, abusive people slide. What is taking place now is the result of our 'compassion'.
On a personal note, I recently was in the hospital. I treated the nurses like they were angels, which they were-even when they woke me up every 4 hours to take blood or my temp blood pressure.
I appreciated their competence, and their abilities, and told them so, many times.
The nursing staff really runs things. You rarely see a doctor, except in your final bill.; 2/4/26, 12:46 PM
Wilbur said...: 2.5 years ago I went to ER for what was diagnosed as a lower bowel obstruction, had next-day surgery, then developed a pulminary embolism and was in there 16 days. The worst part was a case of the hiccups which started before I went in and then became serious and painful during my stay.

The nurses were great, uniformly friendly and helpful. I'm sure it helped that I was friendly and as cheerful as I could manage with not only them, but with the various other people who cared for me indirectly; the cleaning staff, the food service people and others.

The doctors were pretty uniformly cold and clinical, asking how do you feel and not paying much attention to the answer. I found them to be smart, but blinkered in their approach, at least with me. Their only seeming concern was with ordering tests and the results thereof. It took some time and finally a literal demand to see a specialist before my treating physician took my hiccup complaint seriously.

A few days after I was released I took a card and some chocolates to the nursing station, much to their surprise and delight.; 2/4/26, 12:47 PM
imTay said...: This is what I meant when I said that more laws won’t fix the issues when social trust collapses.How many prisons can you realistically build?; 2/4/26, 12:47 PM
Leland said...: Besides spitting, another common assault in emergency departments is a patient taking off their blood soaked bandage and rubbing it on nurses. Most know they likely have blood borne diseases, but it is an assault that is hard to prove in court despite the very dangerous nature of it.

JSM, I understand your comment, but you might not want to stereotype so many based on the behavior of one, or a few. I know many nurses, especially in ED, that get tired of units getting full of illegal immigrants or otherwise that don’t have a PcP, have a cold, and come to emergency hoping to get a Rx and get angry when they might get a dose of OTC med and sent home.; 2/4/26, 12:47 PM
Tina848 said...: A lifetime ago I was a candy striper in a hospital. During our training, they talked about patients trying to touch us, hit us and how to be careful around patients. Dementia, altered states, involuntary pain reflexes and other illness make people act violently or even sexually. We were told to be especially careful around the old men, they have no more inhabitations/control and like to touch.; 2/4/26, 12:51 PM
Levi Starks said...: So, they would exchange a pay raise for better behaved patients.; 2/4/26, 12:52 PM
Jamie said...: I'm interested to hear gadfly's explanation of the statistic. I was wondering, myself, whether it was one of those stats like the "half of all marriages end in divorce" one, that just divides number of marriages by number of divorces, ignoring the serial divorcers. That is, I wondered whether one particular population of nurses - I figured maybe the larger city ER nurses - received most of the assaults.; 2/4/26, 1:06 PM
bagoh20 said...: I've been in the hospital plenty. I'm going next week for a hernia repair. I have never assaulted a nurse, but now I'm feeling left out. I sure as hell am not going to waste it on spitting or hitting, but I like hearing that old guys are expected to misbehave a little. I just need to figure out how to get this giant MAGA tattoo on my chest turned into "ICE OUT".; 2/4/26, 1:16 PM
Beasts of England said...: The Sushi Tero post had tags for crime, robots, garner, and saliva!! I’m overwhelmed… ;); 2/4/26, 1:17 PM
Hassayamper said...: the head of our ambulance district mentioned at a community seminar a few years back that their narcan record for a 'frequent flyer' was almost 200 times.

You should see the radiation doses some of these bums rack up from cookbook-style orders for CT scans of every major part of the body whenever they are found down and drunk. I'm familiar with one frequent flyer from the local Indian reservation who has had over 250 CT scans in our hospital system, and God knows how many more at every other place in town. The cumulative radiation dose was calculated by our radiation physicist to be comparable to being 1/4 mile from the Hiroshima atom bomb. Obviously, the timing of the dose over the course of multiple years mitigates the non-stochastic damage it does (radiation burns, mucosal damage in the GI tract, cataracts, etc.) but the stochastic effect of radiation-induced cancers is going to be off the charts in years to come.

The drug-seekers with crocky pain complaints and "allergies" to all painkillers except opiates also get whopping doses of CT radiation, as do the hypochondriacs and sufferers from panic disorder who come in with shortness of breath every month or two. The latter is a particular problem as it includes many mentally ill young women whose breasts are getting blasted every time they have a chest CT angiogram looking for non-existent pulmonary emboli.; 2/4/26, 1:18 PM
gilbar said...: the PROBLEM with this, is that i'm personal friends with nurses, and they don't feel that this is a problem.
I'm sure that someone here will claim to have been a nurse
(or claim that they'd been on a psycho ward), and tell us that;
"NO! This is A DAILY PROBLEM!!!"; 2/4/26, 1:22 PM
Bob Boyd said...: They want better pay and better working conditions, but will steadfastly continue to vote for the party that has been facilitating the theft of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, a significant portion of which could have gone to them.
And they will continue to vote for the party that opened, and will certainly reopen, the floodgates for millions of illegal aliens who will come to their hospitals be treated, also at taxpayer expense, in their already overtaxed and under staffed facilities.; 2/4/26, 1:23 PM
Triangle Man said...: Perhaps relevant and timely econ paper on crime and health shocks. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20220769; 2/4/26, 1:23 PM
marcelli said...: My uncle was an ER doctor. A nurse that worked with him shared this story after he passed away last spring. The world needs more people like my uncle…

There was an abusive patient who was threatening to smash the nurse's head with a hammer. [My uncle] overheard, so he picked the patient up, one hand on the back of his collar and the other on his belt, carried him to the exit, and deposited him on the sidewalk. “I don’t care where you go,” he said, “but you can’t come back here.”; 2/4/26, 1:25 PM
Enigma said...: There are lots of lawsuits on sexual advances between nurses and patients. One way or the other. Example:

https://www.constangy.com/employment-labor-insider/nurse-tech-lawsuit-claiming-patient-harassment-fails-court-says; 2/4/26, 1:26 PM
gilbar said...: MikeD said...
"..Sounds like she's employed as an emergency room nurse in an urban environment. You know, spaced out, drugged up and mentally ill street people.."

yep, and i'm sure it's hell there.
HOWEVER, most nurses do NOT work in places like that.
Just HOW HORRIBLE are the physical and sexual assaults committed by 80 to 90 year olds (men and women)?; 2/4/26, 1:26 PM
Anita said...: My sister recently retired from a long career as a labor and delivery nurse. What stories she could tell! When my daughter was describing her long work day, my sister asked her, “Did anyone throw up on you today? Did you have to clean up poop? Did a patient call you a Nazi nurse? No? Then you’re ok.”

Once my sister walked into a patient’s room to find the mother of the patient standing there naked. I said to her, “You mean, she took her shirt off?” My sister replied, “No, she was naked.” I asked again for clarification, “So she was standing there in her underwear?” My sister explained, “Look, we know naked. She was naked.”; 2/4/26, 1:27 PM
narciso said...: And what happens to the patients in the interim; 2/4/26, 1:29 PM
john mosby said...: Also probably a Gell-Mann effect whereby the nurses don't realize the people assaulting them in the ER are the same people assaulting the cops.

Unless of course it's a nurse assaulting the cops. CC, JSM; 2/4/26, 1:29 PM
Martin said...: Do they press charges or feel sorry for the poor patient and blame the "system" thus returning them to the world with no negative reinforcement against such behavior?; 2/4/26, 1:31 PM
Bob Boyd said...: How many of the perpetrators of these assaults are homeless drug addicts and/or mentally ill? What could we do for that population with the ten's of billions of dollars stolen by Somalis?
How many perps are illegal aliens from cultures that do not respect women?; 2/4/26, 1:32 PM
kcl766 said...: 2 years ago I had serious spinal fusion surgery (7 hours on the operating table) and spent 1 week in recovery at the hospital and one week in a rehab facility. When I was delivered to the rehab place, I was in extreme pain and lashed out verbally at one of the therapists. When I was discharged I apologized to her for my behavior. She smiled and told me she had endured much, much worse behavior.; 2/4/26, 1:34 PM
mikee said...: My spouse has been in medicine for 40 years now. Over those four decades the quality of the nurses she has worked with made or destroyed her daily morale about work. Could be worse. We could be back in Baltimore, where job highlights included a doctor kidnapped/carjacked in the parking deck and a security guard, when he came upon them in the ER Waiting room, firing his gun at his ill wife and her boyfriend, who drove her there. That and the crack epidemic made the place some hella fun for doctors, nurses, and even patients.; 2/4/26, 1:35 PM
Big Mike said...: Gullible people might look at the headline and presume that there’s hard data behind the “more than 90%.” But if you read the Times>/i> for any length of time you know that hard data behind a reported statistic would be a very rare event.; 2/4/26, 1:37 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, what happened to the trash can I on? When I make a mistake why can’t I delete it??; 2/4/26, 1:40 PM
Big Mike said...: Icon, not I on. Did it again; 2/4/26, 1:40 PM
Biff said...: I'll believe that number isn't too exaggerated for NYC emergency room nurses, who deal daily with people who are having the worst days of their lives. I also can believe that a very high percentage of nurses experience workplace violence at some level at least once in their careers. I know my share of nurses, and there is a tremendous range of risk, depending on specialty.

Gilbar said..."Just HOW HORRIBLE are the physical and sexual assaults committed by 80 to 90 year olds (men and women)?"

A good sized 90 year old male often is strong enough to subdue a petite female nurse, especially when normal psychological inhibitions are lost to dementia. Loss of muscle happens, but a lot of men start out very strong, so there is a long way to go before they no longer are very dangerous. Even a substantially weakened patient can do real damage if they catch you off guard. "Memory care" units really can be dangerous.; 2/4/26, 2:01 PM
john mosby said...: Biff: "A good sized 90 year old male often is strong enough to subdue a petite female nurse"

Yes, the truth value of "any man is stronger than all women" is pretty close to 1. CC, JSM; 2/4/26, 2:31 PM
Jamie said...: Oh hey - I go in next Tuesday for my second knee replacement! Same hospital as the first one, which I had replaced in September. Every staff member I encountered was wonderful, and while I did hear some upset and querulous fellow patients as they came out of anesthetia (I may have been one myself - I wouldn't know!), there were no assaults while I was in there.

I do suppose the nurses have little to fear from patients who are in the recovery room after orthopedic surgery.; 2/4/26, 2:39 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "@Althouse, what happened to the trash can I on? When I make a mistake why can’t I delete it??"

It doesn't appear for me in Safari, so I use Chrome as a solution. That's all I know. Sometimes AI can help with technical questions. Good luck.; 2/4/26, 2:41 PM
Sydney said...: I've been a physician for 35 years, and my general impression is that the public is getting meaner.; 2/4/26, 2:42 PM
loudogblog said...: Out on the West Coast, the Kaiser nurses went on strike a couple of weeks ago. Their demands don't mention workplace safety for the nurses. They want increased staffing but stress that it's for "patient safety." (The Kaiser pharmacists and lab techs are going on strike next week. That makes me a little nervous being a recent transplant patient who has lots of meds and has to do weekly labs.)

From the Google summary ow the nurse's demands:
"Kaiser Permanente workers' strike demands center on significantly improved staffing levels to ensure patient safety, better pay (including a $25/hour minimum wage and substantial raises), and fair workload standards, protesting burnout and understaffing issues that delay care and increase errors"; 2/4/26, 2:48 PM
MacMacConnell said...: It's dangerous on the streets, dangerous in the churches. Hospitals aren't special. why is anyone surprised.; 2/4/26, 3:10 PM
boatbuilder said...: We should all thank our lucky stars that Obama fixed our health care system.; 2/4/26, 3:14 PM
n.n said...: Is this NYeT's clumsy effort to change the climate vector in the woke of Pretti stupid et al's defense of illegal alien murderers, rapists, child molesters, human traffickers, redistributive change schemers, and other unsavory Choices... choices?; 2/4/26, 3:17 PM
Rana said...: My sister, who is an ER nurse, has been assaulted in small rural hospitals and large suburban hospitals. She's been punched, kicked, spat on, and had various bodily fluids and other items flung at her. For Gilbar's edification, while not a DAILY occurrence, it does happen often enough to be an issue. Drugs and entitlement seem to be the main triggers. My son is also a nurse, but he's over 6 feet tall and weighs 225 pounds, so those inclined to lash out usually think twice. He did, however, quit bedside nursing in his words "because of the patient families."; 2/4/26, 3:39 PM
gilbar said...: Rana claims that ALL nurses are ER nurses
Rana is NOT the sharpest hoe in the shed.

Rana? Seriously, do YOU BELIEVE, that ALL Nurses work in ERs?; 2/4/26, 4:42 PM
HistoryDoc said...: I make rounds at my urban hospital everyday starting around 6:30 AM, and the first "Code Grey" (violent assault) is announced overhead by 8 AM almost every morning. The hospital is finally starting to take security more seriously, probably out of fear of legal consequences if nurse, tech, or MD is injured.

Also, as a Doc and as a patient, I find most nurses to be very good, and great one is worth his/her weight in gold.

Strikes are sad for everyone, motives are usually financial regardless of the spin.; 2/4/26, 4:57 PM
Aggie said...: The way the NYT writes the story, one might think all of the bad stuff is intentionally abusive on the part of the patients, who irrationally have it in for all nurses. Still hating them, still for all the same reasons.; 2/4/26, 5:21 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: If you don't punish violent people, they feel they can get away with it. And then there's crazy people.; 2/4/26, 5:49 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: BTW, we're letting millions of people into the USA every year, many of whom have medical conditions, or are crazy, or criminals. Or just burdens on society. Half the foreigners (or immigrants legal/illegal) in my area are over 50. They compete for medical care. But 'muricans don't care. Until it affects them.; 2/4/26, 5:52 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: My sister was an ER nurse in metro Denver, decades ago. She eventually tired of the extreme hassle, and lateralled herself off the field to start a nurse-midwife operation in Aurora. One of the first, possibly THE first, to have proper cooperation with OBGYN and local hospitals. Still running today.

After my own recent serious surgery, I was reading the surgeon's notes. They start with "Mr. Drinkwater is a pleasant man, 65 years old...". I thought, How perceptive she is!

Until someone more savvy clued me in. "Pleasant", in that context, means "unlikely to be an asshole to the me or the staff."; 2/4/26, 5:55 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: In my experience, the nurses are wonderful. I've had one ER visit in the last 4 years, and they had to put up with some "problem children". Two entitled assholes demanding everyone take care of them, RIGHT NOW. People wasting ER time with problems that could have waited. And a violent druggie who had to held down and strapped down for treatment.

What a circus!; 2/4/26, 5:55 PM
Marcus Bressler said...: During my time in the hospital over the past decade, I have done my utmost to be a perfect patient. I have received almost all perfect care. Sometimes I think the surveys help with this.
A friend of mine was in the hospital and she was a bitch to the staff. She had someone smuggle in cigarettes and she started to smoke. She was on oxygen. They caught her in time before she became the Human Torch.
I saved the FWB's life when she OD'ed one night. Two snorts of Narcan from the EMTs brought her out of her almost-dead high. When she was in the ER, she berated me for letting the cops take her drugs (I didn't know she was using at the time). She wanted to AMA, and not wait for the staff to discharge her. She was so nasty that the charge nurse told her to be patient and they were get her out of there when they were DONE and that she needed to shut her trap because if she kept carrying on, they were going to Bake Act her and she could spend 72 hours in a paper gown and slippers. She shut up.; 2/4/26, 6:26 PM
Hassayamper said...: "Pleasant", in that context, means "unlikely to be an asshole to the me or the staff."

One other thing, you don't want the nurses to call you a "peach".

You know down South how they say "Bless your heart" instead of "Fuck you"? Yeah. It's like that.

"Oh, Mr. Jones, he's just a peach, isn't he?!" is most definitely NOT a compliment.; 2/4/26, 6:41 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Our daughter is a CRNA, the calm voice that says 'count backward from 10' right before everything goes peaceful. But this article reminds me that her and her colleagues' world isn't always so peaceful. Yes nurses and staff deal with violence and quite often it's from the family members That's staggering, and unacceptable. Even in the controlled chaos of anesthesia, the frustration from patient's families bubbles up somewhere.; 2/4/26, 8:11 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “ Pediatrician here in Racine. Recently we had two rival gangbangers show up in our waiting room. They immediately attacked each other. Cops got here quickly. Both felons carrying firearms-luckily they didn’t use them. Our security showed up 3 hours later. Our organization is going all out to cut costs. Security is one of the cuts. Safety is not a primary concern in healthcare.”

Good friend from college was an ER doc for his career, and operationally ran the ER that pronounced George Floyd, and probably Renee Good and Pretti. After a bit of snapps, on our yearly backcountry ski trips, the stories would come out. They installed metal detectors, and limited guests in the ER, after a gang shootout moved into the ER one night. There were casualties on both sides, and they were taken to their ER. All their fellow gang members came along, and all of a sudden, they found members of the rival gang there for the .same reason. Out came their guns, and the fight was back on. Then the ER staff had to patch up and stabilize the new casualties, who had been shooting around them just minutes earlier. That was maybe 30 years ago.

Metal detectors and visitor limitations are pretty strict at most ERs to, and esp at big county hospitals, like UMC here in Vegas, and the one my friend worked in. But even at Mayo in PHX, they take guns and other weapons seriously in the ER. Not so much the front door. But if you come in after maybe 7 pm, it’s the ER entrance.

Interestingly, to me, they now have a zero violence policy posted on the outside doors of Mayo, as well as other hospitals my partner has resided in over the last year or two. Plus, if you listen to the PA long enough, you hear Code Gray/Silver/Black on occasion, typically meaning some level of violence. Maybe once a day at Mayo. And more frequently Code Blue (including next door in the ICU in LAS).; 2/4/26, 8:54 PM
loudogblog said...: Fred Drinkwater said...
"After my own recent serious surgery, I was reading the surgeon's notes. They start with "Mr. Drinkwater is a pleasant man, 65 years old...". I thought, How perceptive she is!"

While I was in the hospital, they did all these painful procedures on me and the doctor always noted in the report: "The patient tolerated the procedure well."

My favorite one was the doctor's notation right before my transplant: "The patient is not capable of making their own medical decisions." I suspect that they were worried that I was so incoherent that I might refuse something important and not get the surgery because of that. (Luckily, I had already designated my sister to handle my medical decisions in that situation.); 2/4/26, 10:13 PM
Craig Mc said...: It's not exclusively an American thing. I've been unfortunate enough to spend a few hours of a Saturday night in ER. Once nurse was punched in the mouth by a junkie coming out of an overdose. Another was set upon by a bereaving family member. Imagine how many "Code Blacks" they get over a year.

This is in a free healthcare system too. It's not like anyone's being refused.; 2/5/26, 2:38 AM
Aggie said...: Off.; 2/5/26, 8:28 AM