With
Gun Violence On The Rise, Hospitals Train Their Staff On How To Survive
Shootings
By
Tara Culp-Ressler on Jul 17, 2013 at 1:10 pm
Over
the past several years, mass shootings have intensified instead of abating.
Mass shootings are typically defined as random gun-related incidents that take
place in a public place. But there’s another space that’s emerging as a
battleground for these types of tragedies: hospitals.
“It
used to be hospitals were kinds of ‘hands off.’ Those kinds of things didn’t
happen,” Caryn Thornburg, an emergency preparedness expert who is currently
working with the California Hospital Association to conduct those kind of
trainings, said in reference to hospital shootings. But that’s not the case
anymore. Thornbug believes the economic downturn, drug and alcohol abuse, and
the rise of concealed carry laws have all contributed to a the current
environment in which hospitals have become targets.
According
to the Johns Hopkins study, the rate of assaults on hospital employees is 8 in
10,000, compared with 2 in 10,000 for other employees in the private sector.
And that doesn’t include patients. Just this week, a patient waiting to receive
treatment in a Pennsylvania hospital was struck by a stray bullet.
That’s
why Thornburg has designed a class specifically geared toward healthcare
workers in the Golden State. The California Hospital Association has held about
17 different eight-hour sessions to give staff members — including doctors,
nurses, hospital chief executives, and receptionists — an opportunity to
receive training in preparation for gun violence.
Cheri
Hummel, the vice president of disaster preparedness for the California Hospital
Association, points out that most workplace shootings are over by the time law
enforcement is even able to get there. That’s where hospital staff come in.
“Everyone should know and understand how to handle this kind of an event,”
Hummel told the Los Angeles Times, explaining that hospitals have the unique
challenge of safeguarding patients who may not be able to be moved. “You can’t
just evacuate an entire hospital. Even sheltering in place and putting everyone
on lockdown are challenges,” Hummel added.
Hummel
estimates that about 600 of California’s hospital employees have attended a
training so far, but the demand is growing. Lower-level employees are noticing
that hospital CEOs will take eight hours out of their day to focus on gun
violence prevention courses, and that sends the signal that it’s an important
priority.
Even
outside of mass shootings that threaten medical professionals’ lives, hospitals
are certainly impacted by the rising tide of gun violence. Hospital staff
treats increasing numbers of patients with gunshot wounds, which racks up an
estimated $5.6 million in medical bills each year. In some areas that have
especially high rates of gun violence, like Chicago, hospitals are desperately
seeking more blood donations because their supplies aren’t sufficient to treat
everyone who gets shot.
Tom
Conley Comment:
Most
hospitals have unarmed security personnel which is grossly inadequate to be
able to confront a deadly force threat.
As I point out in the Armed Security section of our website (www.theconleygroup.com), only armed on-site security
officers can have a chance to confront and neutralize active shooters,
disgruntled employees with a gun, an estranged spouse of an employee who shows
up at the workplace with the intent to harm or kill, or armed criminals who
come to a customer location and are intent of robbing, injuring or killing
people at that location. It naïve and
can prove deadly to believe that law enforcement is physically capable of being
on site in time to actually affect the outcome of an active shooter situation
or similar incident. As the old adage
that states, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”
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