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Article on workplace violence hits a nerve

Women’s Health Magazine takes on the crisis of workplace violence with a powerful story, “Nurse are most definitely not alright.”

This story appears in the August 2025 edition of The Washington Nurse.

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Womens health cover

The story had 15,751 views on Instagram, 210 reactions, and 89 shares.

Women’s Health Magazine takes on the crisis of workplace violence with a powerful story, “The nurses are most definitely not alright.

Two WSNA nurses provided their stories to the reporter, including Kelsey, a 21-year-old nurse who was just two weeks into her Emergency Department rotation when assaulted. The patient tried to stick her with a syringe and threw punches at her before a “code grey” was called.

The article said the nurse’s coworkers discouraged her from filing an incident report.

“Many of them had already experienced countless violent situations in their hospital, and management rarely acted on their concerns or increased staff safety measures,” according to the article.

According to the article, Kimberly Johnson, PhD, LMHC, a board member of the Emotional PPE Project, which connects healthcare workers with free, licensed mental health providers, has seen firsthand “the surge in nurses struggling with PTSD, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and burnout,” the article states. “Johnson worries about the long-term implications for nurses if there isn’t major, system-wide change. “

Some states are taking action; one of them, as the article notes, is Washington.

In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed a law requiring hospitals to develop safety plans, safety trainings for employees, and an annual review of workplace violence (WPV)-related incidents. This work is carried out by WPV or safety committees.

In 2025, Washington state passed HB 1162, which builds on the  2019 law by 1) requiring a more regular and detailed review of workplace violence incident-related data by the committee, and 2) making updates to the safety plans annually instead of every three years.

The bill, which was a major legislative priority for WSNA, passed the legislature with unanimous support. It becomes effective Jan. 1, 2026. While this is an important step forward, WSNA recognizes that more work remains to be done to achieve safe workplaces for nurses.

Read more on WSNA’s continued efforts to address the crisis of healthcare workplace violence.