A nurse working at one of British Columbia’s understaffed hospitals is speaking out after she says she was attacked by a patient who made a racist remark.
Arlene Tejo was working in the emergency room at Kamloops Royal Inland Hospital on Saturday when RCMP were called to respond to a man whose behavior Tejo said had escalated to the point where it was dangerous and unmanageable.
In an interview with CTV News Channel, she described her experience. The patient was initially unresponsive, but Tejo woke him up. A few minutes later, as she passes by, the incident unfolds.
“This man deliberately waited until I passed to kick my leg with the intention of tripping me,” she said, adding that he almost hit another colleague.
“I tripped and then he said to me, ‘I don’t know how they do things in your country,’ implying, firstly, that I’m not from that country and that I’m racist for my level of education and professionalism… I’m angry and offended because first of all i am canadian and trained as a canadian nurse. It shouldn’t matter if I was born here or not.”
Kamloop RCMP confirmed they were called to the hospital for reports of an assault and took one man into custody. Tejo says that then the man’s condition was stable. He was then released on a promise to appear in court at a later date.
Interior Health told CTV News via email that the incident occurred in the emergency room and involved “a patient and two staff members.”
“Staff members received on-site support and completed their shifts as scheduled for the day,” health officials said. “Procedures are in place to respond to similar incidents and follow-up is ongoing.”
“SICK AND TIRED OF WORKING IN UNSAFE CONDITIONS”
But Tejo says the incident is indicative of the severe and widespread problems affecting the province’s health system as a whole, saying frontline staff are facing ever-increasing pressure. This weekend, for example, she says the department was operating at just over 50 percent of required staffing.
“We all work over time. We don’t have enough staff. We don’t get enough support on a daily basis. We’re going through a global pandemic, extreme heat waves, another wildfire season — on top of that, we’re getting verbally abused and physically abused, which is unfortunately not new,” she said.
“We’re tired of working in dangerous conditions and we can’t handle being the ones on the receiving end anymore.”
The nursing shortage is one of the problems Teido points to, compounded by the fact that nearly one million British Columbians do not have a family doctor. The lack of accessible primary care, she says, puts more pressure on emergency departments. Also, the closing of emergency rooms in smaller communities means more patients are being told to go to cities like Kamloops to seek care.
“A lot of health workers are compensating for systemic breakdowns that have been going on for a long time,” she said.
“So after that happened, I had to pull myself together, keep working because there were a lot of people that still needed to be seen and we were understaffed.”
She also said she is hearing from colleagues across the country who are working in similarly stressful and increasingly volatile conditions.
“It’s the same story of disrespect, verbal abuse, physical abuse, burnout, understaffing issues,” she said.
“This is part of the reason why we have ward closures across the country and why healthcare staff are leaving at higher rates than ever before.”
In a tweet, former Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Alvin Tejo, who is currently running for Mississauga city council, said he was left shocked and angry by the incident — wishing he could do something to help from thousands of kilometers away.
My sister was assaulted last night while breastfeeding in the ER, she was also told to “go back to her country” 😡 I’m so furious right now and can’t do anything about it. She called to say she was fine but shaken. This is wrong, the police are pressing charges. #NurseTwitter pic.twitter.com/dpWieBMcVi
— Alvin Tedjo (@AlvinTedjo) August 7, 2022
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