Wave of Violent Murders in American Hospitals Continue

Among the failures of Obamacare (the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act) was to tie a portion of federal reimbursement rates to consumer satisfaction surveys of hospitals.

To hospital administrators, low satisfaction ratings mean a hit to the financial bottom line.

Some such administrators encourage hospital staff to pacify or calm aggressive visitors and patients because they are worried about getting bad reviews.

Since the first days of Obamacare, security in American hospitals has continued to be challenged.

In the 2008 Batman movie, a nurse, The Joker (Heath Ledger) blows up a hospital.

According to the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS), their Healthcare Crime Surveys reveal increases in hospital crimes every year since Obamacare began.

And then there was the 2020 pandemic.

That year, the assault rate (non-aggravated) hit a record high since IAHSS first started tracking healthcare crimes in 2012, increasing more than 23% from 10.9 to 14.2.

From 2019 to 2020, the violent crime rate jumped from 1.4 incidents per 100 beds to 1.7.

Disorderly conduct jumped from 28.0 incidents per 100 beds to 36.7. By 2021 it skyrocketed to 56.8 in 2021, a nearly 55% jump.

But the next year, the 2022 Crime Survey found that the rate of hospital violent crime, which includes murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults increased to a record 2.5 incidents per 100 beds in 2021, which was a 47% increase compared to 2020.

In 2021, Reta Mays was convicted of murdering World II, Korea and Vietnam veterans ranging in age from 81 to 96 at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

In June 2022, a gunman killed his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical office because he blamed the doctor for his continuing pain after an operation.

Also, on June 23, 2022, Michael Earl, a patient as University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, stabbed two other patients, leaving one dead. Last month, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

That same year, a man killed two workers at a Dallas hospital while there to watch his child’s birth.

North Carolina RN Johnathan Howard Hayes, 47, Winston-Salem police, say, killed two hospital patients with large doses of insulin in 2022.

In May, 2023,a man opened fire in a medical center waiting room in Atlanta, killing one woman and wounding four.

In July 2023, Bobby Smallwood, a security guard at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center in Portland, Oregon was killed.

On Nov. 2, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced new charges against RN Heather Pressdee, 41, saying 17 patients died in Pressdee’s care when she gave them excessive doses of insulin.

Late last month, a man shot and wounded a doctor at a health center in Dallas.

The American Hospital Association reported “a patient recently grabbed a nurse in Georgia by the wrist and kicked her in the ribs. A nurse in South Dakota was thrown against a wall and bitten by a patient. A medical student in New York who came from Thailand was called “China Virus,” kicked, and dragged to the ground, leaving her hands bleeding and legs bruised.

Data supports these news reports. Recent studies indicate, for example, that 44% of nurses reported experiencing physical violence and 68% reported experiencing verbal abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.