HARRISBURG, Pa. — Dozens of healthcare workers from across the state filed into the Pennsylvania Capitol Tuesday to rally for safer working conditions.
They gathered during Nurses Week and for a key vote in the state house. Representatives voted on House Bill 926, the healthcare workplace violence bill, which passed with bipartisan support, 124-79. The vote comes as many healthcare workers say there has been an uptick in violence against people in the profession.
Among the main actions, the bill requires hospitals to create a violence prevention committee with frontline workers, who are not managers, represented on the committee. It also mandates proactive plans to stop violence, protects staff from retaliation for speaking up and gives the state power to hold hospitals accountable if they do not follow safety plans.
The bill now moves to the senate. If approved, it will head to the governor’s desk, but that could take months or longer. Supporters said the Shapiro administration has voiced support for the bill.
11 Investigates was in Harrisburg for the rallies and house vote. It comes just days after our investigation, Code Blue: Violence in Healthcare.
“We are treated as if we are disposable,” one nurse said during an afternoon rally. “We are the backbone of the healthcare system and yet we are expected to absorb workplace violence to carry the trauma and protect everyone but ourselves.
Rep. Leanne Krueger is the lead sponsor. She has been pushing for the legislation since 2019. This is the first year her bill made it to the floor for a vote.
“Every healthcare worker I talk to has a story. And for every incident that gets reported in the news, there’s so many stories that we just never hear about,” Krueger said. “We’ve got nurses who are in a union and nurses who are not in a union who are all asking for the same thing, a seat at the table when a facility is making a decision, so it’s not just the administrators who are deciding how to keep us safe.”
About two dozen republicans crossed party lines to vote in favor of the bill. Rep. Seth Grove, who represents York County, is one of those who have spoken in opposition of the bill.
The deadly hostage situation that played out in a hospital ICU in February happened in his district. He has said he does not believe the bill would have made a difference in that shooting.
“Number one, it creates a lot of new bureaucracy and paperwork. While it does little to prevent workplace violence in health facilities, this bill literally papers over the problem,” Grove said.
“I’ve personally experienced verbal attacks. I’ve also had patients who’ve taken swings at me,” said Rep. Arvind Venkat, a democrat representing Allegheny County, who is also an emergency physician. “This is becoming a much more serious issue than it has been in the past.”
A report released in February by National Nurses United, a national union of registered nurses, found that eight in ten nurses have experienced workplace violence in the past year, ranging from verbal threats to physical abuse.
Nurses like Lyn Musser, who works in Allegheny County, talked with Channel 11 with tears in her eyes.
“It breaks my heart we’re at this point where we have to pass a law to keep people from hurting us,” she said.
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