The Lord is watching you. A number of Catholic hospitals in Illinois were forced to remove all wooden and metal crucifixes from their hospitals’ emergency departments and patient rooms to avoid them being used to beat members of staff.
According to a November 21, 2023, statement, Hospital Sisters Health System, a Catholic organization based in Springfield, Illinois, made the decision to remove the crucifixes as a response to “the changing healthcare landscape and the general increase in healthcare workers experiencing workplace violence.”
Safer replacements will still be installed, which keeps with the Franciscan standard. “… [Our] facilities and supply chain services are working closely with our spiritual care leaders, have researched multiple options, and have identified several crosses that will be utilized for replacement and secured appropriately,” a representative for the health system said. “As we are a large system with multiple facilities, a phased timing of safer replacements will be ongoing.”
Healthcare and social service workers report the highest rates of nonfatal workplace injuries across all sectors, which explains why a change would need to be made. Removing the crucifixes wasn’t even Hospital Sisters’ first change as they attempted to give all employees “Management of Aggressive Behaviors” training.
Direct care workers also must complete additional intensive training to learn de-escalation skills, which includes active shooter trainings, silent alarms, 24/7 surveillance, emergency phones, and security and law enforcement presence.
“We certainly don’t want to mislead anyone in thinking that we are at all moving away from our main tenets of Catholic healthcare,” a representative from the health system said. “We continue to be a Franciscan-centered healthcare system in all policies and care delivery.”
Source: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/catholic-health-system-removes-all-crucifixes.html