MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The people who care for us have been feeling unsafe as they leave their shifts. Nurses said they are being robbed and assaulted, just trying to walk to and from their cars at their workplaces.
Hospital safety is an ongoing issue for employees who work at these facilities.
ABC24 spoke with a traveling nurse from Memphis about her thoughts on what measures should be taken.
Believe it or not, traveling Registered Nurse Jasmine Williams said there have been countless situations to where she has felt unsafe for a number of reasons.
“As nurses walk across the street, the biggest thing is safety and the employee parking lots are not close to the hospitals,” Williams said.
She has been a traveling nurse for two years and stated that her safety is almost always at risk.
“You have to walk across the street. You have to walk across the parking garage, and that parking garage is not employee parking access only. It’s just open to the public,” Williams explained.
She said it is a problem that needs to be fixed.
“There’s been times where I’ve walked into a facility and there’s been no security guards. There’s no one outside just watching nurses walk to and from the parking lots. The parking lots aren’t secured... usually, hospitals are in low poverty income areas.”
This is where Williams believes it is even more of a risk for getting attacked. Monday at 3:30 p.m. MPD responded to a call about a man following a nurse at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital as she crossed Poplar Avenue, making inappropriate comments.
Since then, the hospital responded in a statement saying:
“The Le Bonheur security team patrols campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and officers are able to provide escorts to or from the parking lot or anywhere on campus… We have been working on expanded security measures and have recently hired five new officers which will allow us to expand our security presence in both the 850 Poplar Ave. and Emergency Department staff parking lots to ensure 24/7 coverage.”
Williams said she just hopes the changes will be consistent.
“I just need it to be from a nursing standpoint consistent with every shift. No matter if it’s 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sometimes people work from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. making sure that they’re alert to what’s going on,” Williams added.
She told ABC24 that she remembered one hospital she worked at where she felt the safest. Williams said more facilities should consider this safety measure.
“It was a security app that we can download to our phones and we had access to where we could just hit a button and security would come to us wherever we were and walk with us,” Williams said. “They had security at the front entrance of the parking lot and the front of the hospital.”
Le Bonheur also stated they have also added patrols and officers around their parking lots around the entire campus. Le Bonheur has also partnered with other law enforcement agencies.