With Gun Violence on the Rise, Hospitals Train their Staff on How to Survive Shootings


A Johns Hopkins study found there were 91 shootings inside U.S. hospitals between 2000 and 2011, typically in emergency departments. The rate of assaults on hospital employees is 8 in 10,000, compared with 2 in 10,000 for other employees in the private sector, not including patients. To respond to these and other violent incidents, hospitals are preparing staff, training them on how to survive a shooting and how to best disarm a shooter.


Emergency preparedness expert Caryn Thornburg, said hospitals used to be "hands off" with security because shootings rarely happened, but that is no longer the case. Demand for training programs is on the rise among hospitals, and experts say that if executives spend eight hours out of their day on gun violence training, it signals to other workers that the problem should be taken seriously. Thornbug believes the economic downturn, drug and alcohol abuse, and the rise of concealed carry laws have all contributed to the current environment in which hospitals have become targets. Cheri Hummel, VP of disaster preparedness for the California Hospital Association, points out that most workplace shootings are over by the time law enforcement is even able to get there. That’s where hospital staff come in. “Everyone should know and understand how to handle this kind of an event.”


Read More Suspected 'Serial Killer' Doctor Had Earlier Issues


A series of professional setbacks, including being fired from a New York medical residency in 1999, likely sparked Dr. Anthony Garcia’s anger, which led him to allegedly murder four individuals in Nebraska. Omaha police said the killings, two in 2008 and two this May, stemmed from Garcia's anger over another setback two years later — his firing from a pathology residency at the Creighton University medical school. Garcia's Creighton termination letter was signed in part by doctors Roger Brumback and William Hunter, high-ranking members of the Nebraska school's pathology department at the time. Brumback was shot to death in May at his Omaha home; his wife, Mary, was stabbed to death. Omaha police say they think Garcia broke into the home and committed the killings. Garcia also is a suspect in the 2008 fatal stabbings of Hunter's 11-year-old son and Hunter's housekeeper in an affluent Omaha neighborhood. Authorities are holding Garcia on suspicion of four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of using a weapon to commit a felony.


Read More Man Shoots, Kills Self at Willowbrook Methodist Hospital Shortly After Wife Gives Birth


A man shot and killed himself at a northwest Houston hospital Sunday shortly after his wife gave birth, according to Houston police. Police said the 32-year-old man, who had recently been distraught, shot himself while in a room with his wife at Willow- brook Methodist Hospital. No one else was inside the room, but some reported hearing what sounded like arguing shortly before the shots were fired.


The hospital has a strict "No Gun" policy, but the shooting left some hospital visitors wondering about security. Read More


‘Nurses Are Being Beaten: It’s Time To Stop Workplace Violence,’ ONA


The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) is calling for a meeting with the Premier and Ministry of Health to work together with the union to develop strategies to keep nurses safe on the job. The decision to appeal to the highest levels of government was spurred by a recent incident at Southlake Regional Health Centre in which a nurse was beaten and three others injured during an assault involving a patient.


Southlake nurses had made repeated requests for extra security from hospital management as they cared for numerous patients who had been identified as being a potential danger to themselves or others in an overcrowded ER; their requests were denied. Southlake management had collected back the nurses’ panic buttons – used to summon help – several months earlier.


ONA has noted an escalation of reports of violent incidents from many of its 60,000 front-line registered nurses and allied health professionals and a reluctance by the Ministry of Labour to fully use existing provincial legislation to prevent such attacks. ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN said “There is existing legislation that very clearly lays out the responsibility of employers to take every precaution reasonable to keep workers safe. Combined with dangerously low staffing levels across all sectors of health care, it’s a recipe for disaster that we’re determined to fix.” She added “the union will not stand by and allow nurses and allied health professionals to continue to be beaten in the workplace.


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