A group of healthcare workers appealed to Wyoming legislators last week, asking them to address an increase in violence at hospitals in the state.
“We have a problem,” Wyoming Hospital Association vice president Josh Hannes said during a state Judiciary Committee meeting in Lander. “There are more incidents taking place in our hospitals, (and) they’re becoming more severe – particularly since the start of the pandemic.”
Tracy Garcia, vice president and chief nursing officer at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, said she recorded 34 assaults by patients on healthcare workers between Jan. 1 and mid-April of this year.
“Since that time, we’ve had seven other incidents in just about six weeks,” she said. “Those included verbal abuse, slapping, hitting, scratching, grabbing the head of an employee and slamming them into the door, grabbing staff by their arms and reaching for their throat, punching them in the chest, shoving them against a door, kicking in the chest and face, pulling hair and jerking head downwards, sexual harassment … and the actual threat on an employee’s life in our organization.”
Asked whether the numbers have gone up in recent years, Garcia said, “Yes.”
“We’ve seen in the last couple of years about a 10 percent increase in assault against health care workers across the nation,” she said. “Never has the violence been as escalated as it has been these last couple of years.”
The increase is apparent at Powell Valley Healthcare, where administrator Arleen Campeau said there were eight incidents of violence in the workplace requiring police intervention during the entire year of 2021.
In 2022, she said there had already been 11 such incidents by April 30.
“These are instances that happen frequently – and a lot more frequently than we think,” she said.
Enhanced penalty
Hannes asked the Judiciary Committee to consider an enhanced penalty for people who assault healthcare workers.
“What we are asking for is a recognition from this body and the larger legislature that we are not going to tolerate, as a state, that kind of behavior in our healthcare facilities against our healthcare workers,” he said. “There is value in saying that this type of attack is different, and we are not going to tolerate it, and we’re going to make a statement saying that if you do this to these healthcare workers that consequence is going to be much more severe.”
Enhancements already exist for law enforcement officers, Hannes noted, citing Wyoming Statute 6-2-508.
“We would recommend … a similar type of recognition for healthcare workers,” he said.
Wyoming Rep. Ember Oakley, R-Riverton, said she wouldn’t “necessarily mind” creating a separate offense in statute for assault on a healthcare worker, but she wasn’t sure whether she would support an enhanced penalty.
She also wondered how many assaults on healthcare workers involve people suffering from mental illness – or people under the influence of drugs or alcohol – noting that those cases are less “prosecutable.”
Garcia said about one-third of the cases of violence she referenced at Cheyenne Regional involved substance abuse or mental health problems.
“Many of our facilities are not equipped in any way to treat those patients,” Hannes said. “That is another conversation that we need to continue to have.”
The committee voted 6-5 to draft a bill creating a misdemeanor crime – not an enhanced penalty – for assault on a healthcare worker, including verbal abuse and threats.
Some legislators said they might want to include other professions and volunteer positions as well, citing testimony from Casper Police Department Lt. Ryan Dabney, who suggested creating enhanced penalties for assaults on people like referees, umpires, clergy and teachers – “anybody that is trying to provide a service that is simply there to help.”
The next Judiciary Committee meeting is scheduled for September.