I just happened to watch a YouTube video the other night about a nurse in an ER getting spit on and assaulted. The elderly patient was clearly suffering from a mental health crisis, having been brought to the hospital under arrest for walking around mumbling and singing in the middle of a highway.

The police who brought her in were (to say the least) incapable of calming her or deescalating things.

She took it out on the nurse.

What surprised me is that the hospital didn't seem to have any procedures in place to deal with a highly disturbed psychiatric patient like her. The nurse did her damndest to examine the patient and provide some level of care, but she didn't seem to have any hospital support for that. She was alone with the patient with the exception of a police officer. No other medical people were in the room, which was just a standard ER cubicle. It didn't seem like anyone had factored workers' safety into planning for similar situations. It didn't seem like patients' needs had been carefully considered either.

The patient was highly distressed and acting out, due a mental health problem. Taking her to a standard cubicle with one nurse and one cop feels like a recipe for failure.

It certainly was for the nurse.

For the cop too. He punched the patient when she spit on the nurse, and he was later fired for it.

I don't think any of that would have happened if better procedures had been in place at the hospital.