Caring for patients even when there is a cost: one nurse’s experience of workplace violence.
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Nursing is an incredibly important and rewarding job, but it can be tough. It’s made even tougher when nurses face verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse from patients or their loved ones.
Violet began a career in hairdressing, and while she loved it, she began to wonder about giving back to the community in a different way.
“I wanted to do a job where I still had direct contact with people but also help them in different ways and nursing really appealed to me.”
Violet went to university to gain her nursing qualifications, while also welcoming a new baby into the world.
“It was challenging making that career change, very challenging! But I am so glad that I did it.”
Now Violet is based at the University of Canberra Hospital in the Slow Stream Rehabilitation, Cotter Ward, where many patients face a long road to recovery from injury or illness.
For the most part, Violet loves her job.
“I love that it is challenging, it’s interesting and there’s never a dull moment. It’s never boring. So you’re never looking around for something to do and every single day is different. People are different and there’s always something to learn,” she says.
The best part of the job is the human interaction and the fact that Violet, sometimes through relatively small acts, can make a difference to someone’s comfort or state of mind.
“A really important part of the job is to really listen to what patients need and to be with them. When you can respond to little things, and often it’s just small things that can make their experience better, it makes a difference that you can see and feel.”
The challenges of nursing are well-documented. Apart from shift work, and the physical and emotional demands of the job, Violet and her colleagues often find themselves on the front line of verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse from patients or their loved ones.
“Being in hospital can certainly be stressful and frightening and we understand that emotions can run high and that people feel vulnerable and they might be in pain. But just because we wear a uniform doesn’t mean we are not human.”
When Violet has been attacked for doing her job it leaves her feeling “sad, shaken, scared.”
“Many nurses are not alone in wondering why they have to deal with abuse when they are already missing their child’s school assembly, or working the weekend or night shift.”
Nurses receive ongoing training and support to be able to handle workplace violence and have systems in place for everything from immediate assistance, counselling and debriefing, to a new strategic model, the Safewards Model, to try and reduce the risk of Occupational Violence occurring in the first place.
This model includes training nurses in setting clear expectations and respectful limits, mitigating bad news to patients, understanding calming measures and ensuring clear lines of communication with patients and each other. This work contributes to the Towards a Safer Culture ‘The Next Steps’ Strategy – a government-funded initiative supporting the fundamental rights of nurses and midwives working in ACT public health services to be safe and protected in their workplaces.
But ultimately, patients and their families need to reflect on their actions and emotions and make changes to their behaviour to stop abuse of nursing staff before it even begins.
“I want the community to know that all nurses do this job to make a difference and because they care. We all come to help people and we have good intentions. It is not an easy job, but if we do not get treated with respect, it is really difficult for us to actually do the job we have come to do,” says Violet.
“I think there is a public expectation that somehow we should just suck it up and few people consider the impact their words or actions can have on our long-term mental health. But they also need to know that not everything is something a nurse can control and we come to work to try our very best.”
Workplace violence is never okay. Find out more about how you can help make ACT Government workplaces safe for everyone at act.gov.au/campaigns/workplace-violence.
ACT Government employees featured in these articles have volunteered their stories to raise awareness around occupational violence and the impact this has on them and the Canberra workforce. * For personal privacy, surnames of interviewees have been removed.
