Dazed and Confused

My name is Jamie Ross, and Sheila Wilson of Stop Healthcare Violence has allowed me to script this guest blog entry.

Over the past months I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with Sheila on a major redesign of her website, stophealthcareviolence.org.

As I embarked on this recent website overhaul, immersing myself in copious data, I was struck (pardon the unintentional pun) by an alarming notion: the severity and frequency of assaults on healthworkers may, indeed, have reached rampant proportions.

Having worked with Sheila since the ’09 inception of Stop Healthcare Violence, I’d already understood healthcare assault to be a serious issue in vital need of scrutiny and repair.

Yet this recent venture made me perceive how critical it’s become.

Report after report and article after article, the overwhelming torrent of events indicate healthworkers are suffering assault on an alarmingly escalating basis.

And it’s not as if victims and victim advocates aren't shouting loud and clear for precautions, protocol, reform and stricter laws.

Yet I am dazed and confused as to why some lawmakers, hospital administrators, and organizations appear to be dragging their feet or – worse – responding with deafening silence. 

"It’s time to view violence against healthcare workers as a public health problem, not just another in a long list of occupational hazards,” says healthcare information source ACH Media.

Indeed, it is. 

Preventing workplace aggression and violence is paramount. It affects so much more than just a small segment of individuals; I believe it truly affects us all.

Many times over the years, I would reflect and wonder at Sheila Wilson; this phenomenal 5-foot dynamo and fearless female who has singlehandedly taken on a crisis of workplace violence and its repercussions with dogged and relentless pursuit.

And I realized: not only do we need Sheila to keep at it – talking, lobbying, informing, educating, guiding, supporting – we need to actively support her efforts.

Write, call or email your legislators, administrators of local healthcare facilities, professional organizations. Block 20 minutes out of your day.

Because hero(ine) that she is, Sheila Wilson cannot do this alone.

Jamie Lyn Ross
Fat Cat Design
www.fcdesign.net
jamie@fcdesign.net