nursingforsocialjustice

Yesterday I attended a regional meeting for the nurses union in my province. If you do not know about the history of unions with respect to the profession of nursing or with respect to the history of the workers rights movement in Canada then I strongly suggest reading about it. Here are some resources:

Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions: History https://nursesunions.ca/history

Kealey, L. (2008). No more’yes girls’: labour activism among New Brunswick nurses, 1964-1981. Acadiensis, 3-17. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30302860

One of the issues discussed was prevention of violence against nurses. I found (as well as some other mental health nurses in attendance) that there seemed to be an implied understanding that nurses who work in mental health experience more violence perpetrated by patients than other areas of nursing. Violence is not a normal part of any nurses job but I think that it is, unfortunately, normalized as part of a mental health nurses job. Unfortunately I think that this also perpetuates the false notion that individuals living with mental health issues are more likely to be violent. Are people admitted to mental health inpatient units more violent than patients admitted to other units in a hospital? Or is this some social artifact that we believe because of what we see in popular media? Sometimes I wonder how nurses personal beliefs and understanding of mental health issues as gleaned from movies, television, news media and other public imagery influence the type of care that is delivered by them in the care setting.

I think that something that another piece of the conversation that is missing is the violence that nurses experience as perpetrated by other nurses and other staff that are encountered in the workplace setting. Yes, it is important to address the issue of the taken for granted abuse and violence that nurses experience from patients (and sometimes their families) but I think that we are ignoring the fact that there is a long history of nurses being violent towards each other which I think reinforces a cultural norm whereby nurses are socialized to take abuse from many different sources. I often wonder, do workplace cultures where staff nurses experience violence from coworkers (where that is nursing peers, physicians, other health care professionals or managers) also have more reported incidents of nurses being victims of patient and family violence?

I think that something that is also missing from the conversation is the violence that health care workers perpetrate towards patients.

peace.

Michelle D.