Vermont Health Care Workers Are Grappling With Unprecedented Workplace Violence
Seven Days
The people who work in Vermont's busiest emergency department have been punched in the face. They've been bitten, stabbed with kitchen shears and battered with metal food trays. They've had their lips split open, noses broken and eyes blackened.
Working in an emergency room always comes with risk. But as hospitals have absorbed the swell of humanity ill-served by so many other struggling systems of care, staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center say they have endured violence of a severity and frequency that is unprecedented — and unsustainable. The escalating threats have led many to consider leaving their jobs. Some already have.
Emergency department workers began raising alarms during the pandemic about the dangers they face.