Many of us who have worked as nurses know how difficult it can be to deal with toxic co-workers. They could be anyone from our fellow nurses to an irritable doctor to that lab technician that just insists on making everyone’s days a little darker. 

 

In situations where we might encounter someone unpleasant, we might shake our heads, shake it off, and go about our days. But what about when it feels inescapable? What about when you’re also dealing with your own possible mental illness? What about when you feel like there is no help available to you?

Sadly, for one nurse in the UK, investigators have concluded that bullying in the workplace led her to ultimately take her own life. According to an article in The New York Post, 30-year-old Rhian Collins, a psychiatric nurse at Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea, Wales and a mother of two young children, hanged herself in her home in March of 2018. After a 5-month long investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death, it has been concluded that Collin’s death was the result of her having experienced issues at work, particularly with bullying co-workers who made her life “very difficult,” per the report. 

 

One of the officers in the report noted that Collins was dealing with being sworn at, bullied, and thought that she was being given the worst shifts. The troubled young woman also showed signs of a possible mental health disorder that developed as a way for her to cope with the stress, with the officers describing her as “obsessed with her appearance,” often going to the gym four times a day and taking weight-loss pills. 

 

Her fiancé, David Reed, who was the one to discover her lifeless body when he came home to bring their children to her, described how Collins had become “run-down and exhausted” in the month prior to her death. Her death has made headlines across the globe, as people mourned the loss of a woman whose Facebook page shows posts of a happy, vibrant woman celebrating her children’s accomplishments and playing with them on school breaks. 

 

“Rest In Peace Rhian Collins,” read one post in her honor. 

“Sorry you felt like you had to take your life due to bullying ???????? we need to do better as an entire race.” 

 

“Nurses Eat Their Young” 

Collin’s death has brought the very serious issue of nurse bullying at work to light, with others sharing their stories and talking about what to do if you feel that you are being bullied at work. 

 

The issue of nurses being bullied at work is so prevalent, in fact, that some research states that as many as 85% of nurses have experienced bullying at some point in their career. Bullying in the workplace can be incredibly difficult to deal with, because the bullied individual may feel like there is truly no place to turn, or that they may be at risk of losing their job if they speak out about what they are experiencing. 

 

And many of us go into the nursing profession being warned about nurses “eating their young,” which let’s face it, is just code for: bullying. 

 

Bullying has no place in the nursing profession, so let’s all do our part to help end it today. 

Source: Nurse.org