Tulsa, OK- June 1, 2022. 2 doctors, a receptionist, and a patient dead
Los Angeles, CA- June 3, 2022. 2 doctors and a nurse- injured and alive
Goldsboro, NC- June 5, 2022. 1 patient shot and wounded
In less than a week.
What the actual fuck?
This is insanity.
Again I am speechless.
In the blog post titled Post-it 3/20/22- J’Accuse, I discussed how healthcare workers, specifically nurses, are under attack. Because of what they did or did not do that could or could not have compromised a patient.
And the immediate knee jerk response by so many, including nursing itself, and doctors, and patients, and hospital administration is to blame the nurse.
Early in the morning on June 2 I was picking up a patient in the ER to take them to pre-op. This was about 0430. I knew of the fatal healthcare shooting in Tulsa the afternoon before. I thought that the staff in the ER would be on edge. I passed an armed security guard in the main ER and I stopped to talk to him. We discussed the shooting the previous day and I asked him if the powers that be (meaning hospital leadership) and the staff had their sphincters tightened. Thank goodness for OR humor and the security guards that understand it. Meaning if there was a heightened sense of caution and an even greater sense of situation awareness percolating in the hospital. He acknowledged that there was and the caution was likely to remain. But that he had our backs.
And this was after the first incident.
In March, as we were driving home from the AORN nursing conference my husband and I were discussing the RaDonda Vaught case.
I distinctly remember telling him that healthcare is under attack. And we should all fear for our freedom.
I did not think to mention fearing for our lives.
Because something has shook loose in the American psyche that allows people to believe that this is right course. I don’t think these people are mentally ill.
That is a fairy tale spun by the governor of Texas.
I was off Friday and Saturday. I wonder what the aura of the hospital is now.
In my head I think of it being like working the floor on September 11, 2001. For days and days we were hypervigilant. Unsure of when the next hammer was going to drop.
When the next attack was coming.
And from what direction.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 