Isn’t it odd that in all the public health and community programs being produced to address and stop violence against women, nothing is ever said or done about the violence towards women in the workplace? I’m referring in this instance to the ongoing workplace violence that is the bullying and victimisation of nurses by nurses.
In the spirit of stopping violence we have sexual harrasssment programs provided to all employees as a legislative requirement. We are obliged to view DVD’s, read policy handouts and advised on the right way to seek help and support if sexual harrassment occurs.
Unfortunately, in a profession dominated by women. Sexual harrassment is not something that we experience or hear very much about and DVD’s on sexual harrassment, as important as they may be, aren’t especially useful to a predominantly female workforce. I personally have never worried about or experienced sexual harrassment throughout my 35 year nursing career and I haven’t met anyone who has complained about it.
However, I have been bullied and experienced the violence associated with being bullied, I know many other nurses who have been and are still experiencing bullying and yet I have never received any formal education or support on how to stop it or do something about it.
The workplace violence towards nurses, commonly referred to as workplace aggression, bullying and victimisation, is a well-known, well-researched and ever-pervasive problem in the health system; yet staff orientation programs fail to address this issue in the same thorough way that staff/client sexual harrassment or the management of challenging behaviours, physical or verbal violence from clients is managed. Why is this insidious workplace violence ignored? Is it because overt physical violence is easily recognised, the injury evident for all to see and the victim is therefore believed?
Formal research, informal anecdotes and nurses stories of their experience all tell us that nurses who perpetrate workplace violence most commonly use psychological violence against their victim(s). In these instances the injury is invisible and often devastating to the observer and thus the victim is disbelieved and shamed.
This troubling situation mimics many other victims of violence such as child abuse, rape and domestic violence. Until recently, the victim of these types of violence were often disbelieved, belittled and blamed. The community and law makers ignored the damage and the victim of the violence had to prove the perpetrators’ guilt. The violence within nursing and the health system is another instance of “blame the victim” for the violence and pretending the situation just doesn’t exist.
In the current climate, Health Organisations place enormous emphasis on ensuring that clients of the health system receive up-to-date and evidence-based care. Nurses, doctors and allied health professional are all expected to remain current in practice, credentialled in their discipline and attend ongoing education and training. Astonishingly, the same evidence-based considerations do not seem to apply to the management structures or policy developers in Health Organisations. If they did, they would recognise the enormity of the problem that confronts nurses on a daily basis and endeavour to address the ongoing violence and significant and often long-term psychological injury that is sustained by the victim.
Let’s put this in a framework that people might better understand. If we as nurses and health professionals insisted on providing nursing care to our clients that reflected the beliefs and practices of 50-100 years ago, ignored all current research evidence of best practice, and gave care that shamed and belittled our clients, critised them for being sick and not getting better, discussed them disparagingly and personally in front of other staff, clients and visitors and ensured that we made their illness worse; we would face competency appraisals, disciplinary proceedures from health management, hauled up before the NSW Nurses and Midwives Registration Board and ultimately dismissed and lose our registration!
Now let’s consider this even further – if this nursing care issue was taken very seriously and subsequently academically researched and all the evidence proved that our nursing care and behaviour caused our clients to leave our care psychologically and financially damaged, depressed, anxious, emotionally exhausted, fatigued, shamed, fearful, depleted of life and job satisfaction and if they have been under our care for a long period of time they may even have developed post-traumatic stress disorder there would be a public outcry!
A parliamentary enquiry or a royal commission would be set up, the media would be hounding our every step and demanding answers and a public education program would be developed and rolled out to help people understand and manage these damaging nursing practices.
Yet everyday in our health systems, right across the board, health organisations and management, continue to silently condone workplace violence, in spite of all the research evidence that the workplace violence known as bullying continues unabated and to such an extent that we are losing our best and brightest nurses.
I have been reviewing the literature on “bullying in nursing”. Depending on the key words I use in my search criteria I can access up to 500+ papers examining, describing and reviewing bullying in nursing.
One of the newer terms for nursing bullying behaviour is “mobbing“. Workplace Mobbing
“a type of psychological terror of antagonistic behaviours with unethical communication directed at one individual by one or more other individuals. The mobbing process begins by attacking the honor, honesty, reliability and professional abilities of an employee”.
How familiar is this description to all nurses working within our health system? When one nurse is bullied or mobbed 2 things occur amongst colleagues. They either join with the perpetrator and demonstrate similar behaviours or they ignore the mobbing and leave the victim without help or support for fear of being victimised themselves.
Victims of mobbing or bullying are exposed to frightening, humiliating, isolating attitudes and behaviors which is psychological workplace violence. The effects of this violence on the victim are far-reaching and long-term. The injuries that occur to the victim are psychological and financial damage, depression, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, fatigue, shame, fear, depletion of life and job satisfaction, and when the violence continues post-traumatic stress disorder.
The effects of this workplace psychological violence on the health system and the greater community are also far-reaching, expensive and long-term.
Workplace psychological violence is not an issue we can ignore any longer.
Training and recruitment is not the big issue in nursing. The real issue is the rentention of nurses in the health system. If we don’t do something about the ongoing perpetration of psychological violence against nurses; if we continue to be silent and inactive in finding a solution to the problem, nursing will whither as a profession. We will be disrespected by the community as we continue to disrespect ourselves.
Let’s stop the violence now.
Workplace Violence I know how it feels first hand. I am still at the centre of such behaviour. Orientation information would be useless in stopping what is happening to me. Our management thrives on corrupt behaviour. You almost have to prove you are a workplace psychopath to qualify for a position. They recruit nursing staff when they want something done to an individual. Of that I am certain. I know that in my forced absence from work the RN who initiated my current circumstances has probably told everyone her version of events to gain support in burying me.
I did nothing wrong. I have never said anything that could offend that particular person yet she sought to do what she did and try to cost me my job and registration. I am living in squalored conditions now because of her actions. She knew management were bullying me so she just joined in for whatever she was offered.
People stupidly believe it’s only about what happens in the workplace and you can just let it go when the day is over.You take it home with you ,you lose sleep over it and suddenly the job you loved becomes the thing you hate because you don’t know what nasty surprise is waiting for you today. I have been in a constant state of fight or flight for almost two years now because I failed to recover from my workplace injury. Instead of improving with the passage of time it hasn’t. The pressure placed upon you to resign is immense and you have to try to somehow steel yourself against it ,while battling ongoing physical pain and fatigue. The strategies taught for dealing with workplace bullying don’t address the underlying problem at all. How can it be stopped when you don’t have one honest person in upper management? My hospital is it’s own area health service so there is only the health minister to go to after management has refused to substantiate complaints. Instead you are punished for reporting the bullying! How do you fight that? I am not a weak willed individual. I abhor all violence especially psychological violence. I took a stand and I continue to ,however, it is a never ending battle.
Work Place Violence and Nurses I totally agree – yes I have seen numerous occasions where bullying has occured – a pack of “nurses” tried to bully me but having been bullied all my life (I guess I am a natural victim ) I managed to ignore their blatent isolatry tactics and they were not able to feed off me so they went onto another easier target ruining that nurses career and life – yes I feel bad and now I am older and have a bit more confidence -( not much) I try and stick up for the new lot of victims as the same bullies still work with me – it is my way of trying to make amends for not being brave enough to help in the past. WHY I have to ask is the vicitm the one who gets blamed for being bullied and why are the bullies always rewarded – if you study your youth the bully got rewarded at school and if you were lucky enough to attend camp the bully was always picked for room monitor not because they worked it was because they could intimidate weaker kids to do their biddding. So as grown ups their bullying insinuates itself into the work place ie: nursing – once upon a time in a past life bullying was weeded out due to the hierarchy of nursing in a hopital system RNs picked on 3rd years – 3rd years picked on 2nd years and 2nd years picked on 1st years but every one left every one else alone and by the time you were a 3rd year you looked out for the 1st year etc… now there is no system in place to check this it is now a nurse eat nurse world with no respect for anyone who is weaker then them – I wish I was brave enough to say that ALL victims should get together with the union rep have a meeting sort out the main points and go and see management but this is the real world were sometimes management and union are literary in bed together and the bully is often their best friend
Workplace violence I just wrote a huge comment for this – and lost it somewhere cyberspace so I have borrowed this off a friend’s wall:
An elder Cheorkee Native American was teaching his children about life. He said to them ” A fight is going on inside me…it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger,envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you, and every other person too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather “which wolf will win?’
The old cheokee simply replied…”The one you feed.”
Isn’t this so true? Nuring as a profession so often is not healthy for it’s employees. It feeds the bad wolf while pretending to offer the good wolf. This is very sad as most people I know enter nursing looking for the good wolf: loving, caring, nurturing.
I am in the process of completing a thesis and accidently (I wasn’t looking for it in the research) stumbled across bullying in the workplace. This presented as a consistent theme with the research groups. In aged care, Level 3 and Level 4 Certificate carers brought this up again and again. This presented, according to their stories, as both peer to peer bullying stories as well from RNs and as lack of support from management ( I am in the exec team as well so I am not attempting to scapegoat others, just report some of their feelings.) Interestingly, when I began to report my findings, I was told to present them in a positive light (???). How do you report bullying in a positive light? I feel this is insults all those nurses/carers who have been bullied. In orientation we discuss bullying and this always opens up an emotional discussion. As a human being, this grieves me, as a nurse I believe and know that it is appalling.
Nursing and aged care practice venues must understand that nurturing staff offering genuinely safe (physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually) workplaces lead to better care: healthy staff are strong, vital, enegetic, inspired, passionate people. Bullying and silence destroys us…and care and standards suffer.
THANK YOU
Maryel wrote:
I just wrote a huge comment for this – and lost it somewhere cyberspace so I have borrowed this off a friend’s wall:
An elder Cheorkee Native American was teaching his children about life. He said to them ” A fight is going on inside me…it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger,envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you, and every other person too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather “which wolf will win?’
The old cheokee simply replied…”The one you feed.”
Isn’t this so true? Nuring as a profession so often is not healthy for it’s employees. It feeds the bad wolf while pretending to offer the good wolf. This is very sad as most people I know enter nursing looking for the good wolf: loving, caring, nurturing.
I am in the process of completing a thesis and accidently (I wasn’t looking for it in the research) stumbled across bullying in the workplace. This presented as a consistent theme with the research groups. In aged care, Level 3 and Level 4 Certificate carers brought this up again and again. This presented, according to their stories, as both peer to peer bullying stories as well from RNs and as lack of support from management ( I am in the exec team as well so I am not attempting to scapegoat others, just report some of their feelings.) Interestingly, when I began to report my findings, I was told to present them in a positive light (???). How do you report bullying in a positive light? I feel this is insults all those nurses/carers who have been bullied. In orientation we discuss bullying and this always opens up an emotional discussion. As a human being, this grieves me, as a nurse I believe and know that it is appalling.
Nursing and aged care practice venues must understand that nurturing staff offering genuinely safe (physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually) workplaces lead to better care: healthy staff are strong, vital, enegetic, inspired, passionate people. Bullying and silence destroys us…and care and standards suffer.
Maryel – You have put into words what I was trying to get across in a different way – too often when doing A&I forms about bullying – Management would tell you to put things in a positive light there by negating what you in informing them about a “situation” were trying to do and taking responsibility away from Management thereby supporting the bully and ignoring the victim
Psychopaths in the workplace All nurses should google that and beware if they come across one. I thought I had seen most awful behaviour in nursing but this person took the prize. We ended up with a enquiry by Judith Memem after which they marched this person out and set her up in some cushy job else where protected by her fellow bullies. Nothing changes really. Be careful these people enjoy destroying lives and careers, it takes you ages to work out what they are up to and you never feel the same about people after them.
bullying and harassment “… When one nurse is bullied or mobbed 2 things occur amongst colleagues. They either join with the perpetrator and demonstrate similar behaviours or they ignore the mobbing and leave the victim without help or support for fear of being victimised themselves.”
How very, very accurate this statement is. The first six months of my new grad rotation were stressful, traumatic and spent in tears, almost on a daily basis. I am a mature aged graduate and brought with me extensive life experience, together with exceptional university grades. In other words, “I knew my stuff”. One would think having a solid knowledge base would be an excellent start whilst gaining practical experience, but, alas, this was not the case.
As I had no real nursing work experience, aside from the required university clinical practicums, I was completely naive about the ways of the workplace. The NUM, CNE and a couple of senior nurses were the perpetrators, thus I simply assumed my appalling treatment was the way all new grads were treated. The story is too long to relate here, suffice to say that I was devastated to discover that my lifelong dream job was a huge mistake and I questioned the wisdom of undertaking a total career change at my age. The following quote sums it up nicely:
“Victims … are exposed to frightening, humiliating, isolating attitudes and behaviors which is psychological workplace violence. The effects of this violence on the victim are far-reaching and long-term. The injuries that occur to the victim are psychological and financial damage, depression, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, fatigue, shame, fear, depletion of life and job satisfaction …”
After about five months, a staff member who had occasion to visit the ward on a semi regular basis, took me aside and strongly recommended I write a detailed account of as much of my experiences as I could recall and present them to the New Graduate Co-ordinator because she could no longer bear to be witness to my treatment. The weight that was lifted off my shoulders was a huge relief and I felt validated and vindicated.
My second rotation was a dream, reaffirming my belief that nursing was where I was meant to be and the senior staff treated me with respect, courtesy and kindness. I was valued.
After that nightmare first rotation, one RN I worked with sent me an email stating how ashamed she was of herself because she recognised that I was a victim of bullying and harassment, but consciously kept aloof because she did not want the same treatment herself. She has since left that ward.
As far as I am aware, no action was taken against those “nurses” and they continue their behaviour. I do know that a number of nurses have left that ward in the past few months. Oh yes, bullying and harassment are alive and thriving in the workplace and as long as no definitive action is taken, it will continue.