Nursing, a Dangerous Profession

It's shocking that nursing is a more dangerous profession than many others, including construction laborers.

Thank you to NPR for reporting on this fact.

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/382639199/hospitals-fail-to-protect-nursing-staff-from-becoming-patients

"According to surveys by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are more than 35,000 back and other injuries among nursing employees every year, severe enough that they have to miss work.
Nursing assistants and orderlies each suffer roughly three times the rate of back and other musculoskeletal injuries as construction laborers.
In terms of sheer number of these injuries, BLS data show that nursing assistants are injured more than any other occupation, followed by warehouse workers, truckers, stock clerks and registered nurses."

Consider these additional examples :

• Louisa May Alcott lost her health after contracting typhoid pneumonia while doing nursing in the Civil War.

• Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, did social work for a while and brought smallpox and scarlet fever home to her family, eventually causing one daughter's death (called Beth in Little Women).

• One of the caregivers at Sunset Assisted Living in Santa Monica was injured while my mother was living there.  A male resident with Alzheimer's kicked her with such force that she fell backward and sustained a lasting back injury.  Her employers did not respond well to the injury, which left her unable to work.  I don't think she was ever compensated.

• I have another friend who is a nurse left unable to work after boxes being transported on a cart fell over and injured her while she was at work in a hospital.