SEPTEMBER 4, 2015, 5:14 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2015, 5:22 PM
BY TODD SOUTH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
One day after a federal report showed workers at Bergen Regional Medical Center had faced waves of assaults by patients, Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco called for the county-owned hospital’s private management company to immediately explain the incidents and present a plan to fix the safety problems.
In a statement released Friday, Tedesco said he’d contacted the hospital and was scheduling a meeting with its management staff.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration findings, released Thursday, detailed cases in which at least eight hospital employees were attacked this year by patients.
As a result of the citations listed in the OSHA report the agency has recommended a $13,600 fine.
Patients had barricaded employees in rooms, punched a lab technician who was trying to draw blood, kicked and bitten a security guard and pushed a nurse to the floor while the nurse intervened during one patient’s attack on another patient, according to the report.
The hospital has been run for the past 15 years by a private management company through a contract with the Bergen County Improvement Authority, according to Tedesco’s release. The company’s contract expires in March 2017.
Tedesco said he was “alarmed” at the OSHA citations of the “private management company for failing to protect the hospital’s employees.”
Psych patients are very unpredictible. Bergen Medical gets them off the streets. They should increase the staffing for the safety of the workers.
I have heard that Bergen Regional psych ward is cruel to patients. Perhaps they need to be investigated undercover.
I heard they give out free ice cream on Tuesdays. We should investigate.