After two women were shot while standing outside of Chicago-based Mount Sinai Hospital in early May, the Chicago Tribune spoke to several emergency room workers who compared their experiences dealing with violent patients, their families and, oftentimes, their fellow gang members to working in a "war zone."
The day following the shooting, the hospital was placed on lockdown because of a virtual riot in its lobby, according to the Tribune.
While Chicago faces a mayoral election this year and city officials claim crime is down, ER workers are observing otherwise.
"We see so much sadness, we work with good people, our Sinai family, and we have many patients who are, well, patient," a Mount Sinai nurse told Tribune reporter John Kass. "But there's the other side. Every night nurses are verbally abused, physically threatened, spit on. It's a constant barrage. It can get scary. They say, 'I'll get you after work.'"
"And this shooting that happened just the other night outside the hospital? It happened right where I get picked up after work," the nurse added. "It's the law of averages. It's a roll of the dice with gangs out of control. That's my life, man."
A Chicago paramedic said Mount Sinai has one of the worst ERs because it is located right off the street. Mount Sinai's ER nurses and physicians are often confronted with threats and angry families and friends, but several of the employees Mr. Kass spoke to expressed frustration with what they referred to as "frequent fliers," or repeat customers who are shot, treated and then visit the ER months later having been shot again or having shot someone else.
"In the ER, among us, there's a lot of disgust, sadness, that we’re looking at lives being lost," the nurse told Mr. Kass. "And we’re scared for ourselves, because we don't know who's coming in the door when the gang families come in. They can be angry, threatening, and we're just trying to do our jobs. Does anybody care?"
While city violence is a top issue in the upcoming election, much of the conversation has been around Chicago's skimpy police force and the gang activity that increases as the weather warms up — not on the safety of the surgeons and nurses that work tirelessly to save lives.
"We're in a war zone. The gangsters keep bailing each other out on gun crimes. They really don’t do real time, they’re out with guns and they shoot and they shoot," an ER nurse told Mr. Kass. "I had a nurse at a different hospital, riding her bike home. Gangsters in a car with a wounded buddy hit her on her bike, taking their buddy to the ER. She had a broken pelvis. Did that make the news? No. We're casualties of this war too."
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