Book by assaulted N.B. nurse alleges 'code of silence' about workplace violence

A former Moncton hospital nurse who was brutally assaulted on the job five years ago has written a book about her road to recovery and her search for social justice, in the hopes it will help other victims of workplace violence.

Natasha Poirier, a nurse manager at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre, was cornered in her office on March 11, 2019, and attacked by the husband of a patient who wanted his wife moved to a quieter room.

Bruce (Randy) Van Horlick pulled Poirier from her chair by her hair, punched her on the temple, threw her against a wall, twisted her arm and several fingers backward, and assaulted another nurse, Teresa Thibeault, who tried to intervene.

The attack lasted 11 minutes. Poirier says her life was "forever changed."

She sustained a brain injury, suffers from daily chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.

"I have 24 symptoms that I have to contend with every single day," she said — conditions so debilitating that WorkSafeNB, Health Canada, Blue Cross and the Canada Pension Plan all concluded she could not return to her job with Vitalité Health Network.

Van Horlick, 74, was found guilty in 2020 of two criminal charges of assault and sentenced to six months in jail.

Poirier also sued Van Horlick, and in 2022 he was ordered to pay her $1.3 million, although she has not yet received any money, she said.

According to Poirier's book, Unsure: Bearing Witness to Justice, written with the help of a ghostwriting company, workplace violence against nurses and other health-care workers is a "global epidemic" that "demands attention."

"We must collectively declare that it is an occupational hazard," she wrote. "The time to say 'Enough is Enough!!!' has arrived."

Poirier suffered two previous workplace assaults during her 25-year career, including getting kicked in the stomach by a patient when she was eight months pregnant, she said.

She has also witnessed colleagues being pushed, spat upon, threatened, and having urine and feces thrown at them.

But few speak out, Poirier said.

"There's an unspoken rule, the 'code of silence,' I would call it, and the fear of retaliation, or the fear of losing their jobs, the fear of being blamed, judged, the fear of being seen as weak, and the guilt and shame — kind of all those factors silence the health-care workers, I believe.