Following Deadly Shooting of Home Health Care Worker, Rep. Courtney Urges the Senate to Bring the Bipartisan Workplace Violence Prevention Bill to a Vote | Congressman Joe Courtney
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Following Deadly Shooting of Home Health Care Worker, Rep. Courtney Urges the Senate to Bring the Bipartisan Workplace Violence Prevention Bill to a Vote

December 9, 2022

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02) renewed his call for Congress to help curb rising rates of on-the-job violence taking place against health care and social service workers. Specifically, Rep. Courtney is urging the U.S. Senate to pass the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1195/S. 4182)—a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Courtney, which has already been passed in the House and would take commonsense steps to ensure America’s nurses, EMTs, doctors, emergency responders, social workers, and other health care professionals are better protected while at work. The call comes following last week’s deadly shooting of Douglas Brant, a home health care worker in Spokane, Washington. Mr. Brant was murdered while on the job as a visiting nurse serving senior patients.

The Workplace Violence Prevention Act has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives—twice. The bill was first passed by the House in 2019 with strong bipartisan support, and was passed again during the current 117th Congress with even more bipartisan support than the first time. The bill was introduced to the U.S. Senate this year on May 12 in honor of National Nurses Week, where it still awaits a vote.

“It didn’t take long for the heartbreaking news out of Spokane, Washington last week to reach eastern Connecticut. Tragedies like these occur nationwide, and they send shockwaves through our nation’s health care workforce—they know better than anyone the sort of danger they face, and that it’s grown worse since 2020,” said Congressman Courtney. “I’ve been married to a nurse practitioner for over thirty years, I’ve worked alongside Connecticut’s nurses ever since I came to Congress, and we’ve pressed forward time and again to address the growing crisis of on-the-job violence facing our health care workers. Nurses didn’t join the profession to take abuse, and the best way to support them and to retain and recruit qualified health care professionals is to ensure they don't have to worry about getting physically assaulted, or worse, at work. That’s what the Workplace Violence Prevention bill is all about. We’ve voted to pass this legislation twice now in the House of Representatives, both times on a strongly bipartisan basis, and it’s long past time that the Senate follows our lead and gets this done so that America’s health care workers are better cared for while they’re working to care for us.”

Background

Violence against health care and social service workers has been exacerbated by the pandemic, and tragic incidents like these are on the rise nationwide. In 2019, a nurse in Baton Rouge, LA was murdered by a patient in the psychiatric ward where she worked. In 2021, a man opened fire at a clinic in Buffalo, MN, killing one person and wounding four others. This summer, two health care workers were stabbed while on the job at a hospital in St. Louis, MO.

Rep. Courtney’s Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act is a bipartisan bill that would help curb assaults taking place against this critical workforce by directing OSHA to issue a standard requiring health care and social service employers to write and implement a workplace violence prevention plan to protect their employees from violent incidents. In April 2021, the House voted to pass the bill by a margin of 254-166—an even greater bipartisan majority than when similar legislation introduced by Courtney passed the House in 2019. Courtney’s bill has drawn endorsements from a host of health care and social service professionals and from unions representing workers in these sectors, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the AFL-CIO,  the American Nurses Association, and many others. It has also drawn official support from the Biden Administration.

On May 12, Rep. Courtney’s bill was officially introduced to the U.S. Senate by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) as S. 4182, where it awaits a vote.

To read more, click here.

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