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In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) signed a bill that makes threatening a healthcare worker a felony.

Under the amended law, threats against a healthcare provider will be similar to other "special circumstance" batteries, which involve actual bodily harm and are punished more severely when the victim or perpetrator has a . In Wisconsin, for example, battery against a firefighter or juror has more serious consequences, as do batteries perpetrated by people in prison or jail.

On Tuesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed a , which will also punish people who threaten violence against healthcare workers, though this would be considered a misdemeanor, not a felony. While Maryland and New Jersey have introduced legislation targeting threats (not just violence) against healthcare providers, Wisconsin's law is the first of its kind to make a threat a felony.

Since the start of the pandemic, have been harassed and attacked on the job, and and have been asking for more protection at work. Nurses and other frontline workers are often the targets of such violence, but some have said that making threats a felony is not enough to prevent workplace violence.

Gina Dennik-Champion, MSN, RN, executive director of the Wisconsin Nurses Association (WNA), pointed to a particular moment in 2019 that sparked alarm. An oncology nurse practitioner, Carlie Beaudin, was from Froedtert Hospital at night and a patient "tackled her and beat her to a pulp. Threw her under her car," said Dennik-Champion. "She wasn't found until like 5 a.m. That was sort of a trigger for us." Beaudin was found frozen to the ground, and later died.

The WNA pushed for the predecessor to this law, , which made battery against a healthcare provider a felony. "The stress of COVID certainly -- I don't want to say provoked people -- but I think we're just seeing the anger everywhere," Dennik-Champion said.

Inflicting bodily harm on a nurse, emergency medical care provider, or a person working in an emergency department was already a felony offence in Wisconsin. But under the amended statute, the victim may be any healthcare provider, or even their family.

It is now a class H felony to "threaten such a person, if the battery or threat is in response to an action taken by the health care provider in his or her official capacity, or in response to something that happened at the health care facility," noted an analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau. low-level felony in Wisconsin, with a maximum sentence of up to 6 years in prison and fines up to $10,000.

In an conducted in January, which asked 11,964 nurses about the impact of the pandemic on their lives, 66% said they had experienced bullying at work, mostly from patients (57%), but also from families of patients and the public.

An earlier survey by National Nurses United of 15,000 nurses showed that 20% reported an increase in workplace violence. The WNA also conducted their own , in which over half of respondents said they had experienced an increase in verbal abuse.

By many , violence and threats against healthcare workers had long been , and under-reported.

In a by his office, Evers noted that "this pandemic has ... underscored the importance of our healthcare workers and all they do to support our families, our communities, and a healthier state, and they deserve to be safe doing their life-saving work."

Dennik-Champion said the change in the law, however, is only as good as its implementation. She said many nurses don't report threats or even violence to the authorities.

"I think the bill is good," she added, but "I don't know how much [abuse] is being reported ... Based on what nurses were saying, they don't report because it's 'part of the job' and, you know, they should not have that perception."

Because of this, Dennik-Champion said she has questions about the role of employers. "Do you report it afterwards? Who reports to the police? Is it the nurse? Is it the employer? I think WNA has questions about that."

Gerard Brogan, RN, director of nursing practice at National Nurses United, agreed that the abuse is under-reported -- a result of a cultural norm in healthcare. "I've heard anecdotal evidence of nurse managers saying, 'Well, you knew when you came into the profession that this was part of the job,' but it's certainly not."

He said healthcare employers should be doing more to prevent violence in the first place, with active participation from healthcare workers on the ground.

"As an organization, we're not keen on making it a felony," Brogan noted, adding that they're advocating for is "all about prevention."

Brogan said that preventing incidents of violence against healthcare workers means providing adequate staffing so staff aren't alone, developing facility- and unit-specific prevention plans, and actively involving employees in implementing and training for those plans, which would include de-escalation tactics, effective alarm systems, and even better lighting inside facilities.

However "hospitals do not want to deal with this. The main reason we can fathom is they don't want the reputation of being a violent place. So they tend to sweep everything under the carpet," he said.

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