TORONTO, ON, November 4, 2025 – Hundreds of nurses and health-care professionals from across the province are holding a vigil at the Nathan Phillips Square to commemorate and honour the lives of those impacted by violence. They are pushing for the implementation of safe staffing levels to help protect health-care workers, as part of a new campaign.
“We know that thousands of nurses and health-care professionals experience workplace violence daily across this province,” Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN, says. “Women workers – who are the vast majority of the health workforce – also continue to face high rates of gender-based and intimate partner violence. At work and at home, we are blamed and shamed for the violent actions of others. Enough is enough.”
In the past year alone, 63 per cent of nurses say they have experienced physical violence, with 89 per cent saying they’ve experienced verbal abuse. Similarly, 44 per cent of women and girls reported experiencing some kind of abuse in the context of an intimate relationship in their lifetime. In both cases, the rates of reporting are very low.
Ariss says that “as an emergency nurse, I have been assaulted at work more times than I can count. Yet nurses and health-care professionals continue to be denied the same safety in numbers that other first responders have due to mandatory staffing ratios.” She cites the case of a nurse at an Ontario hospital who was forced to finish her shift after being injured in an assault, prior to seeking a medical attention.
ONA has been advocating for the implementation of safe staffing levels in health-care settings through the implementation of nurse-to-patient ratios.
Tonight’s vigil included ONA members and allies speaking about the impacts of violence on their work and lives. The union’s new campaign, Code Black and Blue, similarly features real ONA members, speaking in their own words and raising awareness about the violence they face, and the political apathy to address it.
Concludes Ariss, “We will continue to fight for safer workplaces for staff and patients, and for supports for everyone experiencing gender-based and intimate partner violence, including many of us, and many of those we care for.”
ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
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