RALEIGH – About 200 workers from state mental hospitals across North Carolina rallied in Raleigh on Thursday to demand the right to work in a safe environment while earning a decent wage.

They told an invited panel — including five state legislators — that staffing levels in the hospitals had been cut so low that they were often no longer able to provide the required levels of care and still protect themselves.

Some said they were often forced to work overtime or asked to work a double shift — 16 hours straight — and then come in the next day and do it again.

"We care about our patients and we don't want them to get hurt," said Burnett Banks, a health care technician at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh. "We don't want to get hurt either."

As the state plan to reform the mental health system has foundered, long-time workers said patients are increasingly violent and desperate.

"These patients have been getting more violent in the last five years because they aren't getting the treatment they need," said Bernice Lunsford, a nurse at John Umstead Hospital in Butner with 22 years on the job. (more…)