The Ontario Nurses’ Association has launched an advertising campaign calling attention to workplace violence against nurses, citing what the union describes as inadequate action by health-care employers and the provincial government to protect front-line staff.
The campaign, called “Code Black and Blue,” features real nurses discussing their experiences with physical and verbal assaults on the job. It began appearing in transit shelters across Ontario on Oct. 13 and will run for five weeks across social media, television and print newspapers.
“ONA is calling a ‘Code Black and Blue’ in our new advertising campaign,” says Provincial President Erin Ariss. “With virtually every nurse and health-care professional experiencing workplace violence, we are using the phrase to reveal the reality of a bruised and battered workforce and call a code for urgent action as we do in our hospitals.”
Campaign features front-line workers
The ads show nurses speaking directly about workplace violence in their own words, according to Ariss. She said the goal is to make the public aware of what nurses face at work and what is driving workers away from the profession.
“Nurses and health-care workers deliver their own raw – yet professional – stories, thoughts, feelings and solutions in their own words,” says Ariss. “Ontarians are not used to seeing nurses be vulnerable, but it’s important that people understand what we are experiencing while at work and what is driving so many away from their jobs.”
Union calls for safe staffing ratios
Ariss said ONA knows how to reduce violence against nurses but claims employers and the provincial government have refused to implement measures such as mandated safe staffing levels. She pointed to what she called a double standard in workplace safety protections.
“We know how to stop never-ending physical and verbal assaults against nurses. Yet our employers and the provincial government have refused to take the measures shown to greatly reduce the violence we face daily, including mandated safe staffing levels,” Ariss says.
She says it is a “shocking double standard that the safety of other first responders, such as firefighters and EMS personnel, are taken so seriously while nurses are expected to just tolerate it. With this campaign, nurses are speaking out and saying we will no longer accept violence and won’t rest until we have safe staffing ratios like other first responders.”
The Ontario Nurses’ Association represents 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, plus more than 18,000 nursing student affiliates. Members work in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, community care, clinics and industry.
