Discussing Workplace Bullying in Health Care

This spring a few of our members attended AFT Connecticut’s “Workplace Bullying in Health Care” webinar. Here’s what they had to say about it:

“Bullying in the workplace seems to be a major problem in the health care community for many years and the problem has been ignored, yet it is still growing,” says Connie Simons, a medical assistant in the Calhoun Cardiology Center. “What I got out of this discussion is that there are a lot of loyal employees that love their jobs, however it is difficult to walk into a job that you don't feel valued.  Everyone should feel valued, appreciated and respected.  I hope that this environment can start to make us feel valued and important.”

“I think workplace bullying is not easily identified because we as health care workers have tolerated it for so long that we don’t know that it’s bullying, we just think it’s part of the process, part of what we have to deal with, that we haven’t identified it as bullying so we continued to take it,” says Asha Wallace, a nurse in the medical oncology unit. “We have to change the culture of what normal is, and it’s not a manger screaming at you, it’s not a doctor bullying you, cursing at you, throwing objects at you and blaming you for their errors. If we can change that culture of acceptance, we can start changing the bullying.”