AFT Healthcare-Maryland president Debra Perry reports that a bill before the Maryland Senate intended to strengthen violence prevention standards in health care facilities across the state has been withdrawn.
Reportedly, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Katherine Klausmeier (D), was told by nursing home representatives that they already have sufficient standards and methods for dealing with workplace violence. Delegate Tom Hucker (D), who introduced a similar bill in the Maryland House of Representatives, expressed disappointment at the Senate bill’s withdrawal.
The bill would have required public and private facilities to establish a violence-prevention program, improve safety by establishing labor/management violence-prevention committees, produce annual violence assessments, and to provide regular workplace violence training for employees.
Health care workers in Maryland are disproportionately the victims of workplace violence. Delegate Hucker stated that nursing home chains worked to kill the bill, rather than working with legislators to improve “their terrible safety record.”