REPORT: September 2006

Pressure by RNs wins policy at Shore Memorial

by Mark Genovese

• Related article: Preventing workplace violence

While the Mount Sinai experience serves as an example of how labor and management can cooperatively address workplace violence issues, it was a different story at Shore Memorial Hospital.

Nurses at the Somers Point, NJ, facility needed to confront administrators this summer before they agreed that the hospital needed a comprehensive policy to address incidents of violence.

NYSNA Nursing Representative Darlene Coccaro said she had received increasing reports in recent months of RNs being verbally abused by physicians.

Administrators claimed that Shore Memorial already had a “zero tolerance” policy, adding that the chief executive officer had in the past personally reprimanded physicians who abused staff.

Coccaro found, however, this policy only applied to “disruptive” behavior. Furthermore, the escalation of such incidents was evidence that administration hadn’t adequately addressed the problem. “The issue of workplace violence is broader,” she said. “Such aggressive behavior is inappropriate and needs to be stopped.”

Thomas Lowe, NYSNA’s Occupational Safety and Health officer, offered to come to the hospital to conduct a free workshop on the issue. “But at first, management didn’t want to hear any of it,” Coccaro said.

So with the backing of the NYSNA Executive Committee at Shore Memorial, Coccaro responded by filing a grievance. She told hospital officials the nurses were prepared to pursue the matter all the way through arbitration.

Shore nurses were also planning to discuss the problem with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and — because the facility has applied for Magnet status — the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

“Hospital officials saw that the nurses were determined to stand their ground and be treated with dignity and respect,” Coccaro said. So management backed down and agreed to have NYSNA conduct workshops for the staff.

“It was too bad that it became necessary to take this approach,” Coccaro said. “But the ultimate goal was for the NYSNA Executive Committee to work with management to recognize workplace violence and develop a workplace violence policy according to OSHA guidelines that will help protect all employees.”