"Mental health worker" files federal suit against state of Maine for failing to protect her before stabbing

Multiple newspapers and TV news stations in Maine reported today that
Jamie Hill-Spotswood, who was injured on the job at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta in March of 2013, has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Maine for failing to protect her at work. Her lawyer contends that the Department of Health and Human Services was guilty of "inexcusable failure to protect employees from foreseeable and grave danger."

Hill-Spotswood, whose job description is given as "mental health worker" in the related articles, was assaulted by a male patient on a locked ward. He stabbed her with a pen repeatedly until other patients and staff intervened. Hill-Spotswood has needed to have surgery and occupational therapy for her hand, which she used to protect her face in the attack.

According to the Portland-Press Herald's story

Jamie Hill-Spotswood, had told Roland Pushard, the assistant director of nursing at Riverview, less than a week before the March 16, 2013, attack that she was 18 weeks pregnant and that she felt unsafe because there was no security on the hospital floor where she worked, she said in the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

Hill-Spotswood said in the suit, filed on her behalf by her attorney Michael Waxman against Department of Health and Human Services Director Mary Mayhew, that the floor was populated by patients known to be “very, very violent” and known to have threatened or attacked workers and patients on numerous occasions. 

She also contends that the state did nothing after she told the Riverview staff that she felt unsafe and that Riverview never disclosed to her that her accused attacker, Mark Murphy, had a “prolific history of violence,” Waxman wrote in a six-page complaint.

Many of the articles focus on the fact that Hill-Spotswood was pregnant at the time of the attack, but information about how the attack affected the pregnancy was not included. Most of the articles include a photo of Mark Murphy in prison orange.

Earlier stories about the assault discussed whether Murphy was criminally responsible for his actions at the time -- whether the assault resulted from a paranoid state or whether it resulted from his anger and frustration when staff canceled his planned visit to his parents' home.

Maine Has Highest Rate of Workplace Injuries in US; Nursing Homes Are Riskiest Maine Jobs

By Sharon Wachsler

According to a recent report, the state of Maine has the highest rate of serious workplace injuries of any state in the US. The report, "Allsup Study of Workplace Injuries," examines workplace injury rates by location, by type of work/industry — including private sector versus public sector, and by state.

The study was conducted and issued by Allsup, a company that provides representation to people applying for Social Security disability and other forms of disability benefits. [PDF] Data was collected for the year 2011. The number of illness and injury cases at work that required job transfer or restriction in Maine in 2011 was 6200, while there were 14,400 SSDI claims made in the same year.

The measurement of the [PDF] most dangerous workplaces was determined by reports of rates of injuries that were "serious enough to involve days of job transfer or restriction," per 100 full-time workers. The most dangerous workplaces in Maine were singled out as: state- or government-owned nursing and residential-care facilities (with the state rate of 7.1 injuries per 100 workers as compared to the US average of 1.2 for that industry), warehousing and storage (5.2 versus the national average of 2.7), private nursing-care facilities (5.1 versus 2.6), building material and garden equipment and supplies retailers (4.9 versus 2.7).

The fact that "nursing home facilities" and "community care facilities for the elderly" were [PDF] two of the 10 most dangerous industries nationwide — and both of which Maine is among the highest rates of injury for workers — is a disturbing finding. This suggests that not only are the [PDF] residents of such facilities often in danger of serious physical harm, but so are their caretakers, facts which seen very likely to be related.

From ADAPT (adapt.org): "Our long term care system has a heavy institutional bias. Every state that receives Medicaid MUST provide nursing home services, but community based services are optional. Sixty seven (67%) percent of Medicaid long term care dollars pay for institutional services, while the remaining thirty three (33%) must cover all the community based waivers, optional programs, etc."

It seems to me that one of the best ways to support worker safety and the rights and safety of people with disabilities is to support more independent and community living, instead of relying on the nursing home industrial complex. Which would allow both people with disabilities and care workers more options for safe, sustainable, and enriching living and working opportunities.