Health care workers in U.S. subject to increasing anger, even violence: media

WASHINGTON, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Health care workers across the United States are subject to "increasing anger and even violence," a South Dakota newspaper has recently reported.

The phenomenon "is adding great stress on practitioners who are already enduring the pain and hardship of providing care during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic," according to an article published by The Argus Leader, the daily newspaper of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"Health care workers in South Dakota have been called offensive names, faced threats at work or at home, had things thrown at them, and occasionally have endured direct physical violence," the article read. "The aggression is being displayed by both patients and family members."

Many health care practitioners, it added, "see the rise in anger as an outcome of the political polarization surrounding prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and the rise of misinformation campaigns."