LATEST VERSION OF THE ZOMBIES
Emergency Rooms
Now our emergency rooms are turning into another segment of the ZOMBIES – mindless drug addicts trying to hurt innocent people who are doing nothing other than their jobs as drug addiction takes over.
Anyone who checks into an ER abusing opiates, alcohol, methamphetamine or any other drug needs to be routed to a special unit that can immediately address the situation to hand, but then be routed to drug treatment or jail. There needs to be no other options, or like the movie, the ZOMBIES will take over, with just a few of with our minds intact.
“COLUMBUS, Ohio — Emergency room nurse Erin Riley suffered bruises, scratches and a chipped tooth last year from trying to pull the clamped jaws of a psychotic patient off the hand of a doctor at a suburban Cleveland hospital.
A second assault just months later was even more upsetting: She had just finished cutting the shirt off a drunken patient and was helping him into his hospital gown when he groped her.
“The patients always come first — and I don’t think anybody has a question about that — but I don’t think it has to be an either-or situation,” said Riley, a registered nurse for five years.
Violence against nurses and other medical professionals appears to be increasing around the country as the number of drug addicts, alcoholics and psychiatric patients showing up at emergency rooms climbs.
Nurses have responded, in part, by seeking tougher criminal penalties for assaults against health care workers.
“It’s come to the point where nurses are saying, `Enough is enough. The slapping, screaming and groping are not part of the job,'” said Joseph Bellino, president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety, which represents professionals who manage security at hospitals.
Visits to ERs for drug- and alcohol-related incidents climbed from about 1.6 million in 2005 to nearly 2 million in 2008, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. From 2006 to 2008, the number of those visits resulting in violence jumped from 16,277 to 21,406, the agency said.”