2009 Occupational Health and Safety Week

Numerous studies indicate that care professionals face a high risk of being victims of on-the-job violence from a user, their families or visitors on any given day.

According to the data taken from the 2005 National Survey of the Work and Health of Nurses, 34% of care professionals providing direct patient care reported being victims of physical assault committed by a patient in the previous year.

A survey carried out by Léger Marketing for the Federation in 2002, revealed that more than a quarter of the respondents confirmed that they do not feel safe at work. This worrisome fact is the same as that found in the survey carried out by the Federation seven years previously.

Abuse inflicted on care professionals by the clientele occurs throughout Canada and no one doubts that this deplorable fact also applies to those working in Quebec.

Other studies demonstrate that care professionals who are victims of workplace violence demonstrate great tolerance towards their aggressor. Indeed, they have a tendency to accept this violence as part of their job.

A good number of them do not want to make a complaint or declare the incident to their employer fearing that no measures will be taken or that they will be held responsible for the violence or still, that their competence will be questioned by the employer.

This could explain, in part, the existence of a “culture of silence” regarding the abuse suffered by care professionals at work.

Within the framework of the 2009 OHS Week, the Occupational Health and Safety Sector and the FIQ OHS Committee retained a theme of abuse and the slogan, A Violence-Free Workplace, a priority !

The objective is to inform and make care professionals and local union teams aware of the importance of undertaking steps locally to prevent abuse and to plan actions as well as to equip them in order to eliminate this major problem in occupational health and safety.

For the Federation, any form of abuse towards care professionals, regardless of the source, including the clientele, is totally abnormal and unacceptable.

As of fall 2009, and throughout 2010, the FIQ OHS Committee and Sector will add useful tools to the Antiviolence Internet Kit to prevent, even eliminate, physical and verbal abuse by users, their families and visitors towards care professionals and make the employer aware of the importance of taking the necessary measures to protect his personnel and of making it a priority.