A hospital safety law California enacted three years ago has done little to prevent workplace violence, healthcare employees told NBC Bay Area.
The law, which took effect in summer 2017, requires hospitals to develop violence prevention plans and report all assaults against employees to the state. Hospitals that don't follow these requirements can be fined $25,000 for a first offense and up to $132,765 for a repeat violation.
However, healthcare workers across the state told NBC Bay Area that patient assaults are still a regular occurrence at their hospitals. Nearly 23,000 assaults have been reported to California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health since the law took effect, and 77 percent of hospitals did not make safety improvements after reporting an assault.
Doug Parker, chief of the OSHA division, said it's too early to say whether the law has helped improve workplace safety.
"I think that there's more awareness, but I wouldn't feel comfortable at this point saying that there's been a major impact yet. It's still a work in progress," he told NBC Bay Area.
Many hospitals are struggling to comply with the law because it asks them to spend more money on safety without increasing funding, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association told the publication.