Health
Some nurses experience violent attacks at Seattle Children’s Hospital, say they want protection, support
Some nurses at Seattle Children’s Hospital say they feel unsafe at work and have demanded protection.
Police responded to multiple violent incidents in November at the hospital’s Psychiatric and Behavioral Medicine Unit (PBMU), according to the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), which represents over 2,000 registered nurses in the state.
On Nov. 7, police were called when patients “turned over carts, used a pole to swing at people, broke windows and held a nurse in a chokehold,” a WSNA press release stated.
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The Seattle Police Department detailed that incident in a blog post on its website the next day, noting that a 14-year-old boy was arrested for assaulting medical staff in the psychiatry and behavioral medicine unit of the hospital.
“The suspect … armed himself with a metal pole, began destroying property and attempted to locate and harm another teen,” the police department’s blog post said. “The suspect then attacked a staff member and put them in a headlock.”
Police responded in November 2023 to multiple violent incidents in the Psychiatric and Behavioral Medicine Unit, according to the Washington State Nurses Association. (Seattle Children’s Hospital/iStock)
Around that same time period, a nurse was “choked, struck in the head 16 times and nearly lost consciousness” after an attack by a patient, according to the WSNA.
On Nov. 17, police reportedly returned to the hospital after patients began throwing ceiling tiles at staff members.
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Some other complaints filed by nurses within the unit were about patients biting staff members, kicking them in the head and attempting to use medical equipment as weapons, the WSNA stated.
“As staff, we know what we need, and that’s security,” Natasha Vederoff, one of the nurses in the unit, told Fox News Digital in a recent video interview.
“We’re asking for people to help our staff feel safe, so that we can do our job and get fair compensation for the work we’re doing,” she said.
Regular staffing shortages have contributed to problems, say nurses at Seattle Children’s Hospital (not pictured). They say capacity has been strained ever since the onset of COVID-19. (iStock)
After Fox News Digital contacted the hospital for comment, a Seattle Children’s Hospital spokesperson sent a statement.
“Our country is facing an escalating youth mental and behavioral health crisis and the demand for services remains alarmingly high,” the Dec. 5 statement to Fox News Digital noted in part.
“This is not a temporary issue. We’re asking for permanent change because the problem is not going to go away anytime soon.”
“The safety, security and well-being of Seattle Children’s patients and workforce is our top priority and we have intensified efforts over the past several months to address this demand.”
The statement went on, “While these critical steps support the immediate safety of our workforce and patients, Seattle Children’s cannot solve this crisis alone.”
“Our country is facing an escalating youth mental and behavioral health crisis and the demand for services remains alarmingly high,” Seattle Children’s Hospital said in a statement sent to Fox News Digital. The exterior of the building is shown above. (Seattle Children’s Hospital)
“This work is ongoing, and we are actively collaborating with external partners at the local, state and federal level to identify and eliminate barriers and find rapid solutions to address the extremely high number of patients seeking care for mental and behavioral health crises across the state.”
‘Vicious cycle’
Regular staffing shortages have been a challenge for some time in psychiatric care, noted Amy Lamson, who has worked in the unit for more than six years — but the problem got much worse during the COVID pandemic, she said.
“We have not been able to catch up in any capacity since then,” she told Fox News Digital in an interview.
One of the factors contributing to the current crisis is the extended time frame of patient stays, the Washington-based nurses said. (iStock)
“It has been a vicious cycle,” Lamson continued. “The less staff we have, the less expertise we have on the floor, and the less able we are to manage unsafe behaviors — and then staff want to leave because they do not feel safe in the workplace.”
There are conflicting statements about the nature of the current nursing shortage.
In a 2022 letter, the American Hospital Association estimated that half a million nurses would leave the field by the end of that year, which would result in a total country-wide shortage of 1.1 million.
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National Nurses United (NNU), however, has released statements that there is not a shortage of nurses — and that, instead, the problem is “a failure by hospital industry executives to put nurses and the patients they care for above corporate profits.”
While there are plenty of nurses to fill jobs, NNU stated that there is “a shortage of nurses who want to work under current conditions.”
Demand outpaces capacity, nurses say
Contributing to the crisis is the extended stay of many patients today, the nurses said.
The hospital’s Psychiatric and Behavioral Medicine Unit is intended to serve as “short-term crisis stabilization” for three to seven days, but nurses report that some children are staying on the unit for months — or even as long as a year — due to a shortage of residential care beds.
Lamson told Fox News Digital that the increase in injuries began to worsen during COVID, when many outpatient beds and residential facilities closed.
“We’re asking for people to help our staff feel safe, so we can do our job and get fair compensation for the work we’re doing,” one of the nurses (not pictured) told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“With fewer resources in the community for these patients, there are longer inpatient stays,” she said.
Over the last year, there has been an “exponential increase” in safety events and staff injuries, said Lamson.
Henry Jones, another nurse in the unit, noted that a third of the long-term residential beds in the state have closed since the pandemic, and demand has only gone up.
“It’s simple supply and demand — the demand far outstrips our capacity to provide care.”
“It’s simple supply and demand,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “The demand far outstrips our capacity to provide care.”
Jones said he doesn’t believe the staff would be seeing this level of aggression and violence if the patients’ length of stay matched the design of the unit.
“The more isolated you are, the more likely you are to use aggression,” he told Fox News Digital.
Brayden Schander, another nurse on the unit, told WSNA that the nurses have been forced into this situation.
“If the state and nation are not going to change, Seattle Children’s needs to build a residential facility to meet long-term care needs.”
Jones told Fox News Digital, “This is not a temporary issue. We’re asking for permanent change because the problem is not going away anytime soon.”
Patients are not to blame, nurses say
The nurses in the PBMU emphasized that the troubled youth in the facility are not to blame for the current crisis.
“Our patients have suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse,” Joshua Pickett, a registered nurse at Seattle Children’s, told Fox News Digital.
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The nursing staff expects to see certain unsafe behaviors, he noted, as it’s an “expression of pain” and a way for the young people to communicate their needs.
“We don’t want to demonize these behaviors — the reason we are so invested is because we want to help these kids,” he said.
But “our ability to address unsafe behaviors would be greatly increased if we just had adequate resources to do so,” he also said.
The nurses in the PBMU at Seattle Children’s emphasized that the troubled young people (not pictured) are not to blame for the current crisis. (iStock)
During one of her recent shifts, Vederoff said she had to help hold down a potentially violent child.
“I had to stop myself from crying … knowing that this kid would not be in the situation right now if they had the resources they needed — and knowing that we have failed them.”
Pickett agreed, adding, “All too often, rather than healing the trauma that these kids have faced, we’re just retraumatizing them in order to keep people safe rather than creating an environment that is therapeutic and helpful for them.”
Call for action
Pickett sent a call for action to the hospital’s leadership team on Nov. 17 on behalf of the 44 nurses in the unit.
In the letter, which was shared with Fox News Digital by the WSNA, the nurses described the unit as “severely unsafe” and at a “critical point of failure.”
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“The ongoing deficient and inadequate intervention from the hospital has contributed to innumerable injuries, a diminishing workforce and deteriorating morale,” the letter stated.
“Staff work in a persistent state of fear as they come into each shift expecting violence and debilitating abuse.”
The letter went on, “The level of violence that the unit is expected to tolerate has directly influenced rates of staff turnover and pushed the unit into a detrimental staffing crisis.”
“Our hospital is a lens into what is happening nationally,” said one of the nurses (not pictured) in the unit at the Seattle-based hospital. (iStock)
To ensure the safety of staff and patients, the nurses made several specific demands of Seattle Children’s Hospital, which included:
- Three safety officers present during the day and one overnight
- Additional staffing roles, including a break nurse, resource nurse and safety coach
- Maximum ratio of eight patients to every one nurse
- Double pay for all overtime and mandatory shifts
“Let us not wait for the preventable death of a patient or staff to have our voices heard,” the letter from the nurses said.
“Rather than healing the trauma that these kids have faced, we’re just retraumatizing them in order to keep people safe.”
On Dec. 13, the Washington State Nurses Association, plus some of the nurses from the PBMU and Seattle Children’s leadership, met to discuss the status of the actions and interventions that are in progress.
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Pickett shared with Fox News Digital some of the outcomes of that meeting.
“Mandatory overtime and volunteering to stay over are now both double pay,” he said. “Security will be a permanent fixture on the PBMU and a new role will be created and rolled out by the first week of February.”
“This is a national mental health crisis, and our patients have suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse,” said one of the nurses in an interview with Fox News Digital. (Tetra Images via Getty Images)
Hospital leadership also committed to hiring travel BHTs (behavioral health technicians) and RNs to fill current roles in the PBMU, but Pickett said they are “refusing to create the new nursing and PMHS (pediatric primary care mental health specialist) roles we requested, which were essential to our demands.”
“Let us not wait for the preventable death of a patient or staff to have our voices heard.”
Seattle Children’s Hospital also provided an update to Fox News Digital regarding the Dec. 13 meeting.
“Last month, Seattle Children’s opened an Emergency Operations Center in response to extraordinarily high mental health patient volume,” a spokesperson said.
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“Since then, countless teams and individuals have collaborated to develop new processes and implement operational improvements.”
“As a result, Seattle Children’s is better positioned to meet future surges and care for all patients who need us, but the work is ongoing,” the statement continued.
“I could make the same amount of money [in another job] and not be hit every day, but I care about this work.”
“Seattle Children’s — particularly the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit (PBMU), emergency department (ED) and the groups that support them — is still experiencing the impacts of the national youth mental health crisis. Leaders across the organization will continue to support our workforce, patients and families by listening, advocating and championing youth mental health.”
The American Hospital Association estimated over a year ago, in 2022, that half a million nurses would leave the field by the end of the year, which would result in a total country-wide shortage of 1.1 million nursing professionals. (iStock)
The nurses agree that this is a national crisis.
“Our hospital is a lens into what is happening nationally,” said Pickett.
They believe, however, that steps can be taken at the same time to remedy the safety issues at Seattle Children’s.
“I could make the same amount of money [in another job] and not be hit every day, but I care about this work,” said Vederoff.
“I just want my leadership and my managers in this hospital to show that they value this work, too, and they value me.”
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Every day we’re faced with a zillion small choices: Go to sleep early, or watch one more episode of that Netflix drama. Call an old friend to catch up, or cruise social media. Of course, no single action will guarantee a long, healthy life or doom you to an early grave. But those little daily decisions do add up, and over the long term they can make a difference when it comes to both your longevity and your health span, the amount of life spent in relatively good health.
Scroll through this theoretical “day in the life” and select the option that best fits your typical day. Not every situation will apply perfectly, but think about which choice you’d be most likely to make. This isn’t a formal scientific assessment. The goal here isn’t to assign you a “good” or “bad” score, but to help you understand the central factors that shape the way we age and how long we live.
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A study from Harvard Medical School indicates natural selection has favored the red hair gene, resulting in a potential increase in the number of redheaded people as humanity continues to evolve.
By analyzing nearly 16,000 ancient genomes spanning 10,000 years, researchers identified a list of traits that nature is actively pushing forward. Among the most prominent were the genetic variants for red hair.
“Perhaps having red hair was beneficial 4,000 years ago, or perhaps it came along for the ride with a more important trait,” the authors noted.
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The study, published in the journal Nature, relied on a large database of ancient DNA from West Eurasia. Using new computing methods, the team was able to filter out random fluctuations in DNA to identify what it called “directional selection.”
Directional selection happens when a particular version of a gene gives an organism a strong survival or reproductive advantage, causing it to become more common in a population faster than it would by chance, according to experts.
Directional selection is when a specific gene provides such significant benefits that it rises in frequency across a population much faster than random chance. (iStock)
Prior to this study, scientists only knew of about 21 such instances in human history, one of which was lactose tolerance. This new research uncovered hundreds more.
“With these new techniques and a large amount of ancient genomic data, we can now watch how selection shaped biology in real time,” Ali Akbari, first author of the study and senior staff scientist in the lab of Harvard geneticist David Reich, said in a press release.
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The data showed that genetic markers for red hair are among 479 gene variants that have been strongly favored over the past 10,000 years. One likely explanation, the researchers said, is a major shift in human history: the transition to farming.
Scientists have long pointed to vitamin D synthesis as a likely driver for the rise of traits like fair skin and light hair. (iStock)
As humans moved away from hunting and gathering and settled into agricultural societies, their environment and behavior changed radically, triggering an evolutionary “acceleration.”
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While the Harvard study provides the first definitive statistical proof that red hair was actively selected during the rise of farming, the researchers noted that the exact prehistoric benefit still requires more study.
However, scientists have long pointed to vitamin D synthesis as a likely driver for the rise of these light-pigmented traits in northern climates.
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While redheads remain a minority of the global population today, the Harvard study’s analysis suggests that they may not be an evolutionary accident.
While redheads remain a minority of the global population today, the Harvard study’s analysis suggests they may not be an evolutionary accident. (iStock)
Instead, the red hair trait was “boosted” by natural selection as humans adapted to the challenges of a modern world, according to the researchers.
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The researchers urged caution in how these findings are interpreted.
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“What a variant is associated with now is not necessarily why an allele propagated,” the authors noted.
Dr. Megan Jack, a neurosurgeon in Cleveland, often works 60 or 70 hours a week. And she’s completely unavailable when she’s in the operating room. That makes it tough to be a caregiver for her 76-year-old mother, who lives in a separate unit on Dr. Jack’s property, 30 minutes away from the hospital.
To help care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Jack uses an array of high-tech tools, some of which didn’t exist just a few years ago. She manages her mother’s medications with a smart pill box. She changes her television channels with an app, sends appointment reminders through a digital message board — and, with her mother’s blessing, uses cameras for communication and monitoring.
“It’s been invaluable that I can both make sure she’s safe and make sure everything is going well,” Dr. Jack said, “but also give her the independence and the freedom that she still deserves.”
America is aging rapidly. Roughly 11,000 people are turning 65 each day in the United States. And many of them — 75 percent of people over 50, according to AARP’s most recent survey, from 2024 — hope to spend their remaining years in the comfort of their homes, rather than in assisted-living or other care facilities.
One thing that could help fulfill those wishes is the budding field of “age tech,” which encompasses tools that support older adults. Industry experts say that age tech is making homes safer for older adults and is easing the minds of their caregivers, especially those who live far away or work outside the home.
Dr. Jack said that age tech had “really allowed me to integrate caregiving into my life, as opposed to caregiving taking over my life.”
The age tech boom
If older adults don’t have loved ones who are both close by and able to help, they might believe they don’t have a ton of options. They can live independently, or, if they can afford it and qualify medically, they can move to an assisted-living facility or a nursing home, without a lot of choices in between. In-home help can be expensive without Medicaid and can also be difficult to find, given the serious shortage of home care workers.
Age tech can help bridge some important gaps, said Emily Nabors, the associate director of innovation at the National Council on Aging, a nonprofit advocacy group. Already, AARP reports that 25 percent of caregivers are remotely monitoring their loved ones with apps, videos or wearables, nearly double the percentage from five years ago.
“We used to say homes are the health care settings of the future, but they really are health care settings now,” Ms. Nabors said. “Aging in place is very realistic.”
More than 700 companies are in AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative, a group that connects businesses, nonprofits and funders to help get new technologies off the ground. Altogether, the collaborative’s start-ups have raised nearly $1 billion in the past four years.
The products include smart walkers, glasses with lenses that provide real-time captions of conversations for those with hearing issues, and a concierge service that connects older people to drivers and deliveries, even if they don’t have a smartphone.
Ms. Nabors does foresee some affordability and access barriers to age tech, including the lack of high-speed internet in rural areas, but she said one vital resource would be local aging agencies, which can offer advice and, sometimes, free support.
Janet Marasa leaned on the agency near her home in Rockland County, N.Y., to get a free robotic pet for her mother, Carol DeMaio, 80, who has dementia. The pets, manufactured by a company called Joy for All, aim to offer emotional support without the upkeep.
Ms. DeMaio named the robotic dog Sabrina, after a golden retriever who died. The new Sabrina stays at the foot of her bed at night. As soon as Ms. DeMaio stirs awake, the dog reacts. “She said it gives her a reason to get up in the morning,” Ms. Marasa said.
The dog has been a boon to her, too. “It provides comfort and interaction that I can’t provide every second,” said Ms. Marasa, who lives with her mother but works full time for the county government. “It gives her something that she can feel like is totally her own.”
In Broward County, Fla., where the population of residents over 85 is expected to nearly triple over the next few decades, the local agency on aging has used state and federal money and private grants to provide technologies to nearly 4,000 of the county’s seniors at no cost.
Its offerings include a company that uses radar to sense falls and a program that allows seniors to make video calls through their televisions.
“The possibilities are endless,” Charlotte Mather-Taylor, the agency’s chief executive, said. “It’s pretty great to see all the new technology coming out so quickly, and I think that can only benefit our older population and also our caregivers.”
Here comes A.I.
Even technologies not specifically marketed as age tech can help older adults maintain their independence, said Laurie Orlov, founder of the blog Aging and Health Technology Watch. She pointed to video-calling and telehealth platforms; remotely controlled thermostats and lights; and smart speakers, doorbells and watches.
“All technology can be customized to help older adults stay longer in their homes and help their family members feel good about it, or at least tolerate it,” Ms. Orlov said.
That will only become more true with the continued proliferation of artificial intelligence, Ms. Orlov added. Some older adults are already using conversational A.I. to get answers about things like the weather or their medications. (Relying too heavily on A.I. can, however, have negative consequences because chatbots often give flawed medical advice and can lead patients astray.) A.I. can also assist in pattern detection: alerting caregivers to signals that might indicate declines in someone’s cognition or mental health, such as changing their speech pattern or leaving the house less frequently.
One A.I.-powered age tech tool is ElliQ, a tabletop companion robot that looks like a sleek silver desk lamp with a screen. About a year and a half ago, Camille Wolsonovich got one for free, thanks to a local nonprofit, for her 90-year-old father, Bill Castellano. He lives alone in a senior community.
Ms. Wolsonovich, who runs a consulting business, relies on ElliQ to lead her father in exercises and remind him to take his pills and drink water. The robot also asks her father about his sleep and mood via automated check-ins.
“Everything’s just another layer that gives us more confidence, from a caregiving standpoint, that he’s good,” Ms. Wolsonovich said. “I don’t have to necessarily track everything all the time and be overbearing.”
As for Mr. Castellano? He plays trivia digitally and converses daily with ElliQ. The robot, which has a friendly female voice, asks questions, cracks jokes and remembers his likes, dislikes and friends. “She’s great company,” he said. “Everybody around me wants one.”
What about ethical concerns?
Clara Berridge studies the ethics of age tech at the University of Washington.
She has many privacy concerns, namely that most direct-to-consumer products aren’t subject to medical privacy laws, despite being privy to sensitive health information. Though she hopes the federal government will eventually step in to regulate these products, as it has in other countries, the onus remains on the consumer for now.
And even if an age tech product isn’t selling mom’s personal data to the lowest bidder, Dr. Berridge said there’s still the question of whether certain tools are ethical.
“It’s really important for caregivers to recognize that using these new technologies that give them more information about someone can represent greater intrusion into someone’s life,” she said.
What may be well-intentioned monitoring could reveal information that an older adult would rather keep private, such as issues with incontinence, or the comings and goings of a romantic partner.
“It can lead to somebody feeling infantilized,” Dr. Berridge said. “Like there’s not a place to hide within your own home.”
Her research shows that adult children often underestimate how much their parents can understand about technology and how much they want to be involved in tech-related decisions.
She encouraged caregivers to have transparent conversations about privacy implications and to avoid ultimatums or the idea that any decision must be permanent. She said caregivers should put themselves in their parents’ shoes: Is this something they’d want their own children monitoring?
Dr. Berridge is working on an advanced directive for technology, which outlines older people’s wishes for how technology is used in their care. Ultimately, she hopes that questions about age tech will become a standard part of planning for the future.
“If you’re at the start of what, for many people, ends up being a long road of supporting someone potentially through the end of their life,” she said, “seeking to understand each other’s concerns and priorities better is time very well spent.”
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