A healthcare facility is no place for weapons.

We live in an era in which our hospitals and clinics, our houses of worship and our schools are plagued by an epidemic of gun violence. As a nation of individuals we are outnumbered by the firearms currently in circulation, and easily accessed, within our borders. We have watched as colleagues within our own healthcare system, and healthcare providers and staff from across the country, have been massacred and critically injured as a result of workplace violence perpetrated by firearms.

There is no time left to waste on reactive half measures or platitudes. Our leaders within Allina Health must take immediate, pro-active, preventative steps to ensure that all medical staff, employees, patients and visitors are never the victims of a mass shooting or workplace gun violence. We must follow the lead of other healthcare facilities across the country that have committed to enhanced security measures including hiring additional security personnel to, at a minimum, effectively institute the use of metal detectors in weapons-screening every individual entering a hospital. 

This begins with securing the most visible, public-facing element of our hospitals -- the Emergency Department. Every healthcare provider and staff member who calls the Emergency Department home has their own story of workplace violence that is an all-too-common phenomenon within this unique, unfiltered space. We are the safety net of our community and also where the effects of gun violence are most visible. Our job is challenging in the best of times and we believe we are most effective when our leaders support us through concrete, consistently enforced policies that address the burden of verbal and physical violence we do not deserve to experience in our workplace.

Our elected leaders have failed time and time again to address the problem of mass shootings and intractable gun violence plaguing our society. Within this void it now falls upon us to create the solutions to keep ourselves, our co-workers, our patients and our communities safe. The question is no longer if, but rather when, we are personally impacted by gun violence. Our leadership must recognize that ignoring this problem, and failing to act in ways more substantial than any previous efforts, is to embrace a casual cynicism and cruelty that we can no longer tolerate within our healthcare system or community. 

Please sign our petition today and let our leaders within Allina know that it's time to begin the work of making sure weapons stay out of our hospitals.