Oregon bill would mandate health care employers prevent, report workplace violence
Published 10:16 am Thursday, April 3, 2025
- Oregon lawmakers are considering more violence prevention training for health care workers. (Photo by Alan Cohen/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Patrick Hennessy, a registered nurse, remembers being attacked by a patient while working at a homeless shelter in Maryland.
The shelter was understaffed and he was the only medical provider present. After he declined to provide nutritional supplements to a patient who was not directed to take them, the patient got increasingly aggressive and attacked Hennessy.
“No matter what I did, he just became angrier and angrier, to the point that he shoved me and I stumbled backwards and hit my back against the door,” he said.
Hennessy’s experience is part of a growing trend of violence toward health care workers — injuries from workplace violence in hospitals nearly doubled in the last decade and 92% of nurses reported experiencing violence last year in an Oregon Nurses Association survey.
After trying and failing to pass a law that criminalized workplace violence last year, lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 537 to fund prevention work in hospitals across the state, include union representatives in safety committees, increase training minimums and mandate health care providers track and report violent incidents to the state. A committee vote on the bill is scheduled for Thursday.
Expanding protections
Senate Bill 537 would expand existing protections against assault to all cases of workplace violence, including threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation and verbal abuse. It would also extend protections from only hospitals and ambulatory centers to also home hospice programs and home health agencies.
If passed, health care employers would have to implement a prevention and response plan that includes procedures for investigating violence and a protocol for victims to access medical care and trauma counseling. They would also have to compile data about each incident and submit yearly reports to the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, including near-miss incidents, to gather information about the root causes of workplace violence in health care.
The bill would also create a grant program to fund metal detectors, violence prevention training and other safety measures. Lawmakers have yet to set a specific amount to be allocated for the grants. If passed, health care employees would also have the right to present identification badges with only their first name, to protect their privacy.
Most health care associations, including the Oregon Nurses Association and the Oregon Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, support the measure.
“I personally have called the police for real violence on more than one occasion and received minimal assistance. At no point was a police report written,” Craig Rudy, former president of the emergency physicians group, said in written testimony.
The Hospital Association of Oregon opposes the bill, and a representative testified that it “has not had sufficient stakeholder agreement.”
‘Getting a lot worse’
Hennessy, now a nurse at Oregon Health and Science University Hospital in Portland, advocates for the bill as the chair of the Health Policy Cabinet at the Oregon Nurses Association, a group that represents over 15,000 nurses and health care employees statewide. He said the bill resulted from nurses and other health care workers recognizing that workplace violence is untenable and getting worse.
Health care is the leading industry where employees have to miss work due to workplace violence, followed by education. In March, a patient was arrested for allegedly knocking a nurse to the ground and punching her repeatedly in Connecticut and another patient allegedly brutally attacked a nurse at Palm Beach County Hospital in Florida. In 2023, a security guard at Legacy Health in Portland was shot to death while protecting a maternity ward from an intruder.
Hennessy thinks current prevention efforts are insufficient and there is very little research on the matter.
“If we can really get more information on the problem, then we can actually help prevent it,” he said.
He also believes that workplace violence in health care may be underreported and professionals often fear retaliation or job loss if they speak out about their experiences.
“We’ve been conditioned to feel like this is just part of the job, that these things happen and you need to be a stronger person and just brush it off,” he said.
Last year, the Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have made attacking a health care worker a felony. Some advocacy groups, including Disability Rights Oregon and the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, publicly opposed the bill, arguing that it punished those with mental illness.
Senate Bill 537 exclusively addresses prevention and not punishment, but lawmakers are considering a bill similar to last year’s to punish violence toward health care workers. Senate Bill 170 passed the Senate unanimously and awaits a hearing in the House.
State Rep. Travis Nelson, D-Portland, said he has been working to prevent workplace violence in health care for years, including as chief sponsor of last year’s violence prevention bill. Senate Bill 537 differs from last year’s as it addresses the root causes of workplace violence and is not approached as broadly, he said.
