A patient’s attack on a nurse at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Southeast Washington D.C. has renewed calls for increased security at the facility, according to an article on the Washington Post website.
Staff and union representatives said hospital managers have been slow to respond to repeated requests for safer working conditions.
The Jan. 13 incident at the government psychiatric hospital left a 71-year-old nurse with a badly beaten face and two fractured ribs after a male patient escaped from his restraints and clubbed her repeatedly with a telephone.
The nurse said the attack could have been prevented if the facility had installed security barriers at nursing stations, a measure the staff has been urging for years.
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