Staying Safe
from Violence
at Dialysis
By Jane Kwatcher , MSW, LCSW
I write and reflect on the eve of yet another school shooting
with fatalities. In my youth, and likely yours, the biggest
threat at school may have been cruel bullies. Now we need
to acknowledge the fact that schools are no longer safe
havens. A quick Google search indicates there have been
more than 200 school shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012.
But what about our safety in healthcare settings, specifically
in dialysis centers? These are places you may be for hours
at a time, multiple days each week. Can you take your safety
for granted?
There are no publicly available statistics for violence in
dialysis centers. Everything we know of these events come
from events reported in the news or anecdotal reports.
Beginning in 2013, my colleague, Mathias Stricherz, Ed.D.
started to research the extent and types of violence in
dialysis centers. Initially, we administered a survey to dialysis
social workers, and received 274 responses. Since then, we
have continued to collect narratives from dialysis staff and
from news sources.
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Some of the incidents reported:
• Florida: woman shot man in the abdomen while he was
undergoing dialysis in a spillover of domestic violence.
• New York: an involuntarily discharged patient walked into
clinic and opened fire, critically wounding a nurse.
• Kansas: a bomb threat at a clinic required patients
undergoing dialysis to be evacuated.
• Kentucky: two 70 year old men had a fist fight in a dialysis
clinic.
• Patient’s Delusion Results in Threat of Murder in Dialysis
Clinic
• Man on Dialysis for 40 Years Threatens to Shoot Dialysis
Center CEO
• Veteran with PTSD Threatens to Bring Gun to Dialysis
Clinic
• Dialysis Patient Threatens Violence Against Technician
• Spouse of Dialysis Center Manager Uses Racial Slurs to
Clinic Patient
Types of violence reported in our survey data are shown in the