Law enforcement officers stand Northside Hospital Midtown medical office building, where a man opened fire in the medical center waiting room, killing one woman and wounding four, on May 3, 2023, in Atlanta.
Such attacks have helped make health care one of the nation’s most violent fields. Data shows American health care workers now suffer more nonfatal injuries from workplace violence than workers in any other profession, including law enforcement. Fifteen minutes before the shooting, someone at the hospital called 911 to report the visitor was threatening staffers, according to a timeline provided by Portland police.
“Events like these are unpredictable, but our team exhibited professionalism and a great deal of courage in the face of extraordinarily challenging circumstances that day,” Legacy Health said in a statement to the AP. Security teams cannot address all of the factors leading to violence because many of them are caused by a dysfunctional health care system, said Deborah Burger, a registered nurse and the president of National Nurses United.
Growing nurse-to-patient ratios are an “absolutely catastrophic formula for workplace violence increasing,” D’Angelo said. “Now you don’t even have the good old buddy system of two co-workers keeping an eye out for each other.”