Sierra Robins: I’m a nursing student. Do I face a career fraught with violence?

One nurse was punched so violently by a patient’s husband that she suffered a brain injury. Another was struck in the face with a dumbbell, breaking her upper jaw and cheekbone. Unfortunately, these are not stories from a sensationalized crime show; both incidents occurred in a Canadian hospital, as reported on by National Post health writer Sharon Kirkey.

Kirkey’s report, headlined “Inside Canada’s shockingly violent hospitals,” was jarring, not because the stories were news to me, but sadly because they are far too common.

As a nursing student preparing to enter the field, I have already been warned: expect to be yelled at, threatened, maybe even hit. We are told to de-escalate, stay calm, and understand that patients are stressed out. Very few institutions reinforce the idea that nurses have a right to feel safe at work. How did we get to a point where abuse is nothing more than an aspect of the job description?

Violence in hospitals has become so routine, so normalized, that people barely flinch when they hear about it. But they should. No one should accept that abuse is just “part of the job.” Yet that’s what many of us are told, by managers, by colleagues, and some of us even say this to ourselves. In its guide on workplace violence and harassment, the Ontario Nurses’ Association tells us that “violent incidents are NOT part of the job.” However, the ONA also acknowledges that these words do not always translate into protection. Under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act, employers are legally required to take “every precaution reasonable” to protect workers. All too often however, hospitals fail to implement or enforce adequate safety measures, leaving nurses vulnerable.

According to a 2017 Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions’ (CFNU) report entitled Enough is Enough, violence-related lost-time injury claims had surged among front-line health-care workers by a staggering 66 per cent over the previous decade, surpassing the rate of increase for both police and correctional officers. A CFNU poll found that 61 per cent of nurses had experienced a “serious problem with some form of violence in the past 12 months, whether bullying, emotional or verbal abuse, racial or sexual harassment, or physical assault.” Yet only about a quarter of those affected sought help from their union and only 60 per cent reported it. Many were told by management or colleagues to “suck it up,” reinforcing a culture of fear-based silence.

This violence takes a significant toll on the mental health of nurses. A CFNU national survey of 5,595 nurses in early 2024 found that nine out of 10 registered some amount of burnout; the same number had experienced some form of abuse in the previous year. Thirty-two per cent of those nurses surveyed said they experienced anxiety and 25 per cent said they experienced depression.

Despite this, many nurses receive little to no mental health support. Behind every number is someone sitting in their car after a shift, too shaken to go home. Someone crying in the staff bathroom. Someone wondering if they can keep doing this. These are not just statistics; they are people breaking under the weight of a system that too often fails to protect them.

The impact does not stop with us. A traumatized workforce cannot deliver safe, compassionate, patient-centred care. When nurses are overwhelmed, afraid, or burnt out, patients suffer as a result. A 2014 review of workplace violence among health-care workers by Nathalie Lanctôt and Stéphane Guay found that exposure to workplace violence leads to decreased job satisfaction, higher turnover, and a decline in care quality. In some cases, nurses reported using restraints, not because it was good for the patient, but rather because they feared for their personal safety. Some even became fearful of all patients, not only violent ones. Others withdrew, spent less time at the bedside, or lost a sense of meaning in their work. As someone who deeply values compassionate, attentive care, it’s concerning to think that violence could compromise the quality of care patients receive.

We need a drastic cultural shift, one where violence is never excused, no matter the cause. Hospital leadership must take a zero-tolerance approach, not only verbally, but in action. This means enforcing safety protocols, supporting staff when incidents occur, and recognizing that psychological harm is as real as any physical injury.

Nurses show up every day to care for, advocate for, and to help heal patients, yet they are met with fear, violence, and rejection. It’s time to listen, to believe, and to act. This culture of abuse should not be part of the job. Nurses cannot provide safe, compassionate care while fearing for their own safety. If the public continues to ignore this crisis, they risk losing experienced nurses and deterring an entire generation from entering the profession. The violence must stop, now.

Sierra Robins is completing her third year of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Algonquin College (Pembroke Campus), in collaboration with the University of Ottawa.