Nurses at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Tacoma say ICE agents bringing detainees to the hospital often ignore infection-control, privacy, and restraint standards, leading to unsafe conditions for patients and staff. They report agents staying in rooms during intimate care and keeping patients tightly shackled, sometimes causing visible injuries and distress. The concerns have prompted unions and immigrant-rights advocates to call for clearer hospital policies and greater public accountability.
Documents and testimony reviewed by reporters include seven workplace complaints from St. Joseph’s nurses. Those accounts describe incidents that range from an agent tightening handcuffs so severely that a doctor recorded “notable indentation and bruising” and numbness in two fingers, to an agent allegedly leaving a gun unattended in a hospital bathroom and guards removing masks inside an infection-control area. Nurses say they raised those incidents with management and repeatedly asked for written protocols and guidance about custodial escorts. As reported by KUOW, the hospital’s owner declined to answer detailed questions about restraint policies and said, “Our focus in every situation is the same: ensuring patients receive appropriate medical care in a safe and respectful environment.”…