STEPHENS CO. HOSPITAL TRAINING STAFF ON THREATENING SITUATIONS

February 19, 2008

Officials at Stephens County Hospital say they are working to train staff members to handle situations with patients not necessarily dealing with medicine. Monday at the monthly Hospital Authority meeting, Director of Nursing Faye Taylor told the authority board plans are in the works to train many departments at the hospital how to handle situations where patients may be causing a potential threat to others at the hospital.

Taylor says they have begun the training process for nurses and others. "This is a two-day class," says Taylor. "We sent three of our ER nurses to a week-long training and now they are instructors and it just teaches staff how to recognize when someone may be getting to that point where they are about to go over the edge and lose control."

Hospital officials asked Taylor what exactly they are learning in the training. Taylor says it is mostly for defensive purposes, as well as preventative measure. "The training we are doing with staff is for when they get in those situations where they are being attacked, where they have to do something to get away from the patient, but most of it is things they can do to avoid the situation getting to that point," adds Taylor.

Both Taylor and Stephens County Hospital Administrator Ed Gambrell indicated during the meeting there has been an increase in incidents at the hospital of this nature. They did not provide any specific figures on the number of incidents during the meeting.