WI Lawmakers Want Attacking Health Care Workers A Felony Amid Increase Of Assaults

WISCONSIN — The Wisconsin State Assembly voted Wednesday to pass a bill that would make attacking or threatening a health care worker a felony. State hospitals said that assaults against hospital staff rose over the past decade. The bill will now head to the State Senate.

Attacking or threatening a health care provider, hospital worker or their family members will be punished as a felony, the bill text said. Under current law, it’s only a felony if someone batters a nurse or an emergency health worker.

Threats and acts of violence against health care workers increased at a concerning rate, the Wisconsin Hospital Association said in a statement. Of people who suffered workplace injuries in the U.S., 73 percent worked in health care in 2018, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.

The bill will have to pass the State Senate and be signed by Gov. Tony Evers before becoming a law.

“The effects of these actions by a select few impacts the availability of health care to the rest of our state,” the association said. “Health care providers are burned out and growing threats of violence in the workplace are forcing them to make difficult career decisions to protect themselves and their families.”

Massing threats and the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic had caused the “quit rate” of health care workers to increase 30 percent in the first five months of the fall 2020 surge in coronavirus cases, the association said.

Staff reported 117 cases of physical assault on workers at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital - Madison in 2021, SSM Health said in a statement. Staff members have suffered verbal abuse, threatening letters mailed to their homes and calls to facilities threatening violence against staff, the health system said.

Hospitals across the U.S. saw around 60 percent increase of physical assaults on hospital workers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.