OSHA Cites Jacksonville Center for ‘Shocking’ Amounts of Violence on Workers

Federal safety regulators have fined a Jacksonville behavioral hospital more than $15,000 over what they called “shocking” findings, including almost 200 violent attacks on workers in one year.

Workers at Wekiva Springs Hospital were repeatedly assaulted, bitten, punched, kicked and pinned down by patients, causing multiple broken bones, concussions and other injuries, and the hospital failed to take steps to improve conditions, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in a bulletin.

“Wekiva Springs Center exposed the people they hired to assist and care for their patients to an alarming rate of workplace violence. They also failed to take sufficient steps to change ineffective procedures for protecting their workers and, as a result, the dangers continued unchecked,” said Scott Tisdale, OSHA’s area office director.

He noted that in 2022, the center had more than 180 reports of violent incidents, 70% of which required a police response. Among the incidents:

• A patient threw a chair at a mental health associate and three nurses in an attempt to leave the facility.
• A nurse was kicked in the stomach.
• A patient repeatedly slammed a mental health associate’s head into an air conditioning unit, causing a concussion.

“This facility’s lack of action to protect their employees’ safety and health is concerning, to say the least,” Tisdale said in the statement. “No one should ever work in fear of death, violent assault and serious injury just to earn a living.”

The OSHA citation letter contends that the center should have: used trained security guards to respond to aggressive patients and should have trained staff to level of security guards; ensured that physicians were on hand during the night shift to authorize emergency treatment of violent patients who did not respond to regular medications; established a comprehensive workplace violence prevention program; provided affected employees with therapists, personal alarms and communication systems; and provided stronger seclusion room doors that can’t be broken open by patients; removed furniture that can be thrown around; and installed Plexiglas-type barriers for nurses’ stations.

The facility employs about 218 workers is owned by UHS of Delaware Inc., one of the largest health care systems in the country. The corporation, a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, has a long history of OSHA violations, the government agency noted.

In January of this year, an administrative law judge found that the company exposed employees at a Massachusetts hospital to workplace violence without adequate protections in 2019, particularly at times when hospital staffing was low. A judge also sanctioned UHS for destroying surveillance videos that showed workplace violence.

UHS has contested the latest citation, OSHA said.

The company, which operates about two dozen facilities in Florida, has seen many workers’ compensation claims filed against it. The Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims shows more than 130 contested petitions for benefits in the last 15 years, and several more involving the Wekiva Springs facility.