Each day in the U.S., an average of 57 nurses are assaulted, which is about two per hour. While this may be surprising to you, to me, sadly, it is not. 

While working as a nurse in the emergency room, I have been slapped, kicked, punched, and pushed. I have been yelled at and threatened by patients and their family members. 

A survey by The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) found that 70% of emergency nurses  say they’ve been hit and kicked on the job.  In fact, healthcare workers experience the highest rate of workplace violence in any industry. One national ED safety study reported 3,461 physical attacks across 65 U.S. emergency departments in five years. Despite these statistics, there is still no federal law that protects healthcare workers from workplace violence.

In 2025, the U.S. recorded more than 155 million emergency department visits, highlighting the growing reliance on EDs as a primary access point for healthcare. The emergency room is a unique environment in that it never closes, and no one can be turned away. I personally like to describe it as “the perfect storm,” as the conditions are often appropriate for chaos. There are dying patients, psychiatric patients, and patients under the influence of drugs and alcohol. There are so many patients with different problems, all demanding care at once. 

With limited resources and extremely long wait times, the result is often patients and families with heightened emotions, including sadness, fear, and, unfortunately, rage. Nurses often become the recipients of verbal and even physical abuse, all while trying to do their jobs.

The American College of Emergency Physicians has found that visible security presence in the emergency department is a major, if not the primary, deterrent to violent behavior by patients and visitors. The first step in preventing violence in emergency rooms begins at the front door. One research study found that one in five emergency departments report that guns or knives enter the emergency department daily or weekly.

Although most emergency rooms have multiple security measures in place to help protect patients and staff, current research has shown that many hospitals can still do better. In a 2018 survey, over half of the respondents said that hospitals could do more to protect hospital workers by adding security personnel, cameras, metal detectors, as well as increasing visitor screening. 

I currently work in an emergency department that does not have a metal detector at the entrance. Despite being one of the top-rated hospitals in the country, it lacks a simple security device that saves lives.

In 2021, the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1195), was introduced in the House but did not pass the Senate. In 2025, the SAVE Healthcare Workers Act, H.R. 3178/S 1600, a variation of the original bill, was reintroduced. Its aim was to protect hospital personnel from violence by establishing federal criminal penalties for assaulting hospital employees.  This act would provide legal protections similar to those for airline and airport workers, ensuring that healthcare workers are treated with the same level of safety and security in their workplaces. It has still not been passed.

Now is the time to act. The Emergency Nursing Association and the American College of Emergency Physicians have created a campaign entitled No Silence on ED Violence. 

This movement, organized through the website, offers an opportunity for everyone to join in the movement to stop violence against healthcare workers. This campaign is striving to engage the public as well as federal policymakers and other stakeholder organizations by offering healthcare workers an outlet to share their personal accounts of workplace violence, as well as a collection of links to follow and support current legislation in support of bills such as The SAVE Healthcare Workers Act. 

Other organizations that carry influence in the federal advocacy of the protection of healthcare workers include the Connecticut Hospital Association, Connecticut Nurses Association, and the Connecticut State Medical Society. Contact these associations, your U.S. Congress members, and attend town hall meetings that can help your local hospitals get the support they need in terms of security, staffing, and the reporting of violent acts.

If you are a healthcare worker reading this, please speak up about workplace violence. Share your stories. Even if you are not directly impacted by violence in the emergency department, talk to your legislators and senators about why healthcare workers need federal protection by law. 

Help us in the fight to end this epidemic and to show hospital, state, and federal leadership that healthcare workers deserve protection under a national standard, and that no caregiver should fear coming to work. Help protect healthcare workers, as they will be the ones who will protect you in the most vulnerable moments of your life.

Kimberly Kearns of Bolton is a Registered Nurse at UConn Health.