The BC Nurses Union held a big rally in downtown Vancouver today calling on the Horgan government to provide trained security officers at hospitals in the province.
President Christine Sorrenson says both verbal and physical violence against nurses is on the increase and it's time for the government to act.
Sorrenson says, "We are not working in safe workplaces that protect nurses and stop them from becoming victims of violence and then becoming patients in our healthcare system."
Sorrenson says nurses have been bitten, kicked, punched and there's even been sexual assaults in the workplace.
The statistics she says are grim.
In BC, the number of violent incidents reported at health care workplaces increased by 52 perent between 2014 and 2018. On average, 26 nurses per month suffer a violent injury at work.
Here in Kelowna it's different. KGH, along with Interior Health and the nurses union, has already implimented a system of security officers in the emergency ward and it's worked.
Violent incidents are down here.
The nurses want the same system in place at all BC hospitals.