For the third time in five years, a federal investigation has found the operator of multiple psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities, has had workers seriously injured or killed in violent patient attacks, including an employee who suffered serious injuries caused by a patient at a Melbourne, Florida location. The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began an investigation into the Nov. 7, 2023, incident after Circles of Care Inc. reported the worker’s hospitalization two days after a patient used a metal hole punch to strike a mental health technician at a nurse’s workstation in the head, face, hands, and arms. A second employee suffered a hand laceration as they assisted in restraining the patient.
OSHA cited the company with a repeat violation for not providing a workplace free of recognized safety and health hazards, such as workplace violence. The agency found Circles of Care failed to provide sufficient controls to prevent the escalation of acts of aggression toward professional staff. OSHA also issued a citation for an other-than-serious violation for the company’s failure to report an employee’s work-related hospitalization within 24 hours, as required by law. Circles of Care Inc. faces $101,397 in proposed OSHA penalties for these violations. The incident follows OSHA investigations into two other serious incidents in 2020 at the company’s facility on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Melbourne: the fatal shooting of a counselor by a former Circles of Care patient in December and, on another occasion, an alleged assault.
