DES MOINES – AFSCME Council 61 President Danny Homan issued the following statement regarding four assaults on staff members at the Independence Mental Health Institute over the span of nine days:
“There is a safety crisis taking place for the employees of the Independence MHI, and the State of Iowa is showing no urgency to address it. While we are still gathering details of each incident and how it could’ve been prevented, here is what we know:
• On Thursday, June 6, a Residential Treatment Worker (RTW) was hit in the head and jaw at least three times by a patient who escaped restraints. The RTW is off on workers’ compensation and is being treated for a closed head injury, cervical sprain, and TMJ pain.
• The same day, an RN was punched in the nose and scratched repeatedly by a patient. Following this attack, the RN gave two weeks’ notice of her resignation. She was then moved to the sex offender unit with one other RTW. The RTW was then assaulted by a patient shortly after the RN arrived on the unit. The RTW continued to work, despite being assaulted, and later responded to a Code Green on another unit. This left the RN to work the sex offender unit by herself – something that management promised would never happen, given prior sexual assaults of employees on that unit. Fed up with poor training, mandatory overtime, and low morale, she resigned immediately following that fearful shift.
• On Friday, June 14, another RTW was assaulted by a patient, including having their head slammed into a wall, followed by, as they described it, ‘windmill punches everywhere.’
“These frequent assaults point to the incompetence of the management running the facility and their carelessness when putting frontline workers in avoidable danger. Open positions are left unfilled, training is ineffective and incomplete, and managers pick and choose who they like best when granting vacation time off and benefits like catastrophic leave.
“When Governor Reynolds talks about taking DHS in ‘a new direction’ after asking Director Foxhoven to resign, we sure hope that includes safety measures for the dedicated public service workers who are put in harm’s way every single day. Her office says that these ‘changes will be announced in the coming days and weeks ahead,’ but the truth of the matter is, worker safety cannot wait another day.”
There are procedures and guidelines for interaction with inmates. When the staff is derelict by either laziness or carelessness in doing their job, these things happen. I think you have to consider the caliber of worker that is hired by this type of establishment. I also think the adage “you get what you pay for” is evident in the employees mentioned in this story.
Oh no! Snowflake is alarmed again. This is part of their job. They are not dealing with the church choir.
Maybe you should try and get a job at the institute, oh, they won’t hire you because you can’t pass the test.
Getting hurt by an inmate is not “part of their job”. If it was, how many guards do you think would hire on if that was part of their job description. You must have been an inmate.