RALEIGH -- Two workers from state mental hospitals told legislators Wednesday that a zero-tolerance policy intended to protect patients from abuse and neglect has led to increased violence against staff.
Lanier Cansler, secretary of health and human services, established the policy last year after reports of hospital staff's neglecting, beating or sexually assaulting patients. He says the policy is working, though he concedes employees need further training on how to deal with violent patients safely.
At a meeting of the state's legislative oversight committee Wednesday, about a dozen workers affiliated with the N.C. Public Service Workers Union showed up to say the policy has been counterproductive and called on officials to end it.
Workers attacked by violent patients can now face a difficult decision, they said: Defend yourself and be accused of assaulting a patient, or take a beating.
"A lot of us are getting hurt," said Rebecca Hart, who has worked four years in the children and adolescent unit at Central Regional Hospital in Butner. "It seems the patients are able to do pretty much whatever they want to do because of zero tolerance. We are afraid, because we have situations where if we touch them wrong, we're out the door."
The workers cited state figures showing that the number of staff injuries at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro rose 43 percent in the first six months of 2009, compared with the last six months of 2008. The workers said the injuries have also increased in severity.
Two other state hospitals saw smaller increases, while Raleigh's Dorothea Dix Hospital saw a 48 percent decrease in staff injuries. The data were compiled before about half the patients at Dix were transferred to Central Regional.
The DHHS could not say Wednesday just how many employees were fired or forced to resign under the zero-tolerance policy since it took effect in February. But union officials distributed a flier recounting the firing of four staffers for such violations as clipping a patient's nails too short or talking to patients too loudly.
The state is barred by personnel privacy laws from commenting on whether those accounts of firings are accurate.
Cansler, who has previously met with employees from the union, said Wednesday that he had no intention of overturning the zero-tolerance standard. He said patients' injuries had declined under the policy, though the department could not immediately provide statistics to support that contention.
Cansler said the safety of patients is his greatest concern. "If ... an employee is in real danger and defends themselves, I don't see how we can not take that into consideration," he said. "It's just that we have to give them every tool we can to make sure the patient isn't injured in the process."
