MNA Responds to Recent Healthcare Workplace Violence

The Maryland Nurses Association joins the North Carolina Nurses Association and the Texas Nursing Association in expressing our outrage at the brutal and senseless murders of two nurses and a social worker while they were working in the past week. 

• https://ncnurses.org/about-ncna/latest-news/statement-on-the-death-of-june-onkundi/
• https://www.texasnurses.org/news/620123/

On October 18, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, June Onkunki was stabbed to death by her patient at Freedom House Recovery Center, Durham, North Carolina. On October 22, social worker Jacqueline Ama Pokuaa and registered nurse Annette Flowers, who worked at a mother-baby unit at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, were shot and killed.

These healthcare providers became our latest casualties in a system that has failed to adequately protect working nurses and other health care providers. According to the American Nurses Association, one in four nurses has been assaulted at work. 

https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/work-environment/end-nurse-abuse/.  

Workplace safety is essential for patient care, as well as for the recruitment and retention of nurses. Increasing workplace safety is a priority in the advocacy and education efforts of the Maryland Nurses Association. With the help of all of our members, and all friends of nursing, we will continue the fight to protect nurses and patients. 

Dr. Christie Simon-Waterman, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, WCC, DWC 

MNA President