Note: Brittany delivered these comments to the California State Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment on April 17, 2024.

My name is Brittany Brandon. I’m a Registered Nurse in the Psych unit at Southern California Hospital at Hollywood, where I’ve worked for two years. Previously, I worked at a VA hospital.
I urge you to support AB 2975—the Secure Hospitals for All bill—because it will make our hospitals safer, and that means patients get better care.

My experience has taught me how to treat patients who are facing mental health crises. I know how to approach them with kindness and compassion—and I know how important that is for ensuring they get the care they need.

It is difficult for nurses to give compassionate care when we are on high alert. Nurses on my unit are concerned for their own physical safety. Scraps of metal, formed into shanks, have been recovered from patients rooms. Other dangerous weapons or items which could become weapons are often found by nurses among patients belongings—which we must search in their presence.

Read: Legislation aims to curb the epidemic of hospital violence

Many of these patients come to the hospital with all of their personal possessions. When we have to check their bags in front of them it escalates the tension they already feel, when what we need is calm. These patients should see us as their caregivers—not the police officers they encounter on the street.

AB 2975 requires that trained security officers—not healthcare workers—are the ones who must search bags.

That small change will have a huge impact. It will free nurses to focus on care. It will change the dynamic for nurses like me who treat patients in a mental health setting. Paired with the bill’s requirement to have metal detectors at key entrances, it will make us all more safe.

That is why we must pass AB 2975. Thank you.