What kind of sick hospital would use pepper spray on it's patients? Like you really had to ask...


This is the year 2004, and there are several state-of-the-art programs to de-escalate a frightened or highly agitated mentally ill patient. Yet Yale-New Haven Hospital allows its security to spray pepper spray into patient’s eyes. This is an unethical act.

The third principle from the American Nurses Code of Ethics states, "The nurse promotes, advocates for, and strives to protect the health, safety, and rights of the patient." This is a moral obligation for all nurses.

Needless to say, the use of pepper spray on patients should be abandoned by these hospitals.

As a nurse in New Jersey, the very first thing we told a patient upon admittance into a psychiatric unit was, "We will keep you safe." We showed our patients love and handled them with care. They loved and trusted us. How else could they get well?

Elizabeth Elliott


Of course, the Yale New Haven Register can't let this fly without defending such a generous advertiser and patron, and thus, we are treated to this explanatory and excusatory note:

Editor’s note: Pepper spray is used rarely and only in the most dangerous conditions to subdue patients at the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, according to Medical Director Dr. William Sledge. After each incident, a full review is conducted on use of the spray.

To quote Jerry Dammers of the 1970s British 2-Tone Ska Revival Band The Specials, "It doesn't make it alright. It's the worst excuse in the book, and it doesn't make it alright."

Yale New Haven Hospital, "just because you're nobody, doesn't mean that you're no good."  ¶ 4:12 PM