San Francisco hospital social worker’s killing spurs calls for answers

After a social worker at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center was fatally stabbed, union leaders are seeking answers and want to see changes to protect staff.

The social worker was stabbed multiple times Thursday and died Saturday, the San Francisco Police Department said. A suspect, Wilfredo Tortolero Arriechi, 34, of San Francisco, has been arrested and is in custody, police said.

The social worker hasn’t been identified by authorities, but co-workers have said the victim is Alberto Rangel, according to local media reports. The San Francisco Department of Public Health operates the hospital.

Doctors, nurses, and other staff encounter violence far too often in hospitals across America. After the stabbing in the San Francisco hospital, union leaders say they want to see a full investigation in the incident and greater protections for staff.

Dan Russell, president and chief negotiator of UPTE CWA 9119, said in a statement that he was “shocked and horrified by the stabbing of a valued member, colleague, and friend, while on the job at the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.”

“We demand, expect, and will participate in a full and detailed investigation of this incident, and will continue to remain in close contact with hospital leadership, city officials and all relevant agencies as we seek answers and continue to fight for reliable and consistent safety protocols, adequate staffing, and the resources clinicians need to care for their patients and clients,” Russell said in the statement.

Russell said the union has warned about “unsafe conditions and chronic understaffing that put them at risk every day.”

In the fatal stabbing, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office said hospital staff had asked for additional security for a doctor who had been threatened by a patient.

The sheriff’s department said it provided security for the doctor, but a deputy heard a disturbance in the hallway and found the suspect attacking the social worker. The deputy apprehended and retained the suspect, but said the victim suffered stab wounds to the neck and shoulder. Deputies also said they recovered a five-inch kitchen knife that is believed to have been used in the attack.

A request for comment from the San Francisco Department of Public Health wasn’t immediately returned Monday.

The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association is demanding changes in security at the hospital in light of the stabbing.

The association says that sheriff’s deputies have been removed from some areas of the hospital campus and replaced by clinicians and other staff. The hospital formed a Behavioral Emergency Response Team to handle more incidents, and the deputy sheriff’s association says the fatal stabbing shows that model isn’t working.

The deputy sheriff’s association has called for an audit of the hospital’s security model, with input from unions representing nurses and other frontline staff. The association is also seeking an expansion of deputy sheriff deployments in high-risk areas.

Ken Lomba, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, said deputies have been moved away from the areas where they are needed. He also said the stabbing wasn’t an unforeseeable incident.

“ZSFGH’s own data show years of serious assaults and weapons on campus,” Lomba said in a statement. “Deputies, nurses, and social workers told DPH that pulling deputies off high-risk units/posts and replacing them with unarmed cadets and distant response teams would get someone seriously hurt or killed.”

Zuckerberg San Francisco General is San Francisco’s only Level 1 trauma center and the city’s only 24/7 psychiatric emergency department, the deputy sheriff’s association notes.

Staff gathered outside the hospital in a vigil to mourn the social worker, KTVU-TV and other media reported.

Another social worker at the hospital told KGO-TV that workers have been complaining about safety for years.

Other fatal attacks have taken place at hospital systems this year.

WakeMed police officer Roger Smith was shot and killed last month at the WakeMed Garner Healthplex in Garner, North Carolina, a city just outside of Raleigh. The campus is part of WakeMed Health & Hospitals. Authorities said Smith’s actions likely saved other lives. A suspect has been charged in Smith’s killing.

A security guard was shot and killed at INTEGRIS Health Enid Hospital in Oklahoma in August. The guard, identified as J.W. Bode, was 72 years old, authorities said. The suspect was shot and killed.

In February, a police officer was killed in a shooting at UPMC Memorial, a 104-bed hospital just outside York, Pennsylvania, and several others were shot and wounded, including a doctor and a hospital staff member.

Authorities later said the officer, Andrew Duarte of the West York Borough Police Department, was killed by a shot from a fellow police officer. Authorities said that the attacker caused the officer’s death, NBC News reported. The suspect in that incident was shot and killed.

• Read more: Hospitals press Congress to make attacks on healthcare workers a federal crime