Representative Madeleine Dean of Glenside and Betty Long, founder and CEO of Guardian Nurses in Flourtown, were featured today by The Philadelphia Inquirer for their efforts to advance legislation that would make assaulting a healthcare worker a federal crime.

Last May, Dean introduced the Save Healthcare Workers Act to “create legal penalties for individuals who knowingly and intentionally assault hospital employees.” The legislation has gained 48 cosponsors.

“Healthcare workers devote their lives to our well-being — yet hospital employees face more and more incidents of violence in the workplace with no federal protections in place,” Dean said in a statement. “The legal penalties in the Save Healthcare Workers Act already exist for other workforces, like commercial flight crews, and extending these protections to hospital employees is simply the right thing to do. I’m grateful to work with Dr. Miller-Meeks on our bipartisan bill to ensure safety for our healthcare workers.”

An excerpt of The Inquirer’s interview with Dean and Long:

What are you seeing on the ground that prompted you to advocate for stronger workplace protections for nurses?

BL: Well, my clinical days are long gone. But nurses who have come in [to Guardian Nurses]post-COVID share stories about the violence, verbal abuse, physical abuse that they’ve endured.

There was the story from Penn Presbyterian, where the nurses ran out to get the ER patient and upon doing so, were run over by the man dropping them off. That really struck a chord with me.

At the time, there were 60 nurses on my team, and I said, “How many of you have been assaulted or victims of any kind of physical or verbal violence?” And 49 of them raised their hand.

I mean, sure, back in the day, somebody would yell and grab your hand or something, but there wasn’t a level of intensity.

They shared stories that I was totally overwhelmed with. I thought, people don’t know about this. That was really what kicked off my campaign to educate the public, so that hopefully they’ll get engaged. Because an engaged public makes a difference.

In related news, Dean announced last week that she filed amendments to Congressional Republicans’ fiscal year 2027 funding bill “to reinstate funding to prevent gun violence, support law enforcement, and protect the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.”

From the announcement:

After the FY26 funding bill cut $200 million from for Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIP) programs, Congresswoman Dean introduced an amendment to restore this critical support in FY27. CVIP programs give states and local law enforcement the resources and freedom to address crime at the local level. In Pennsylvania, CVIP programs have helped decrease gun homicides by 46% since their 2022 peak. Governor Shapiro is leading efforts statewide to address the program deficits due to federal cuts. 

Additionally, Congresswoman Dean also introduced an amendment to reestablish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms’ Demand 2 program. The Demand 2 program helps law enforcement trace guns used in crimes by imposing additional reporting requirements on firearms dealers whose guns have been traced to criminal activity. In 2025, the program was shuttered and dealers who qualify no longer needed to report information on used guns they have purchased to ATF hampering law enforcement efforts to reduce gun violence and gun trafficking investigations. Without Demand 2, more than 100,000 guns annually would not have been traceable.

“Our obligation as the Appropriations Committee is to ensure our congressional funding upholds justice, democracy, and the rule of law. The FY27 funding bill proposed by my Republican colleagues not only weakens gun violence prevention programs — intervention that we know works — it also guts funding for law enforcement,” Dean said in a statement. “My amendments would ensure that communities have the resources they need to keep residents safe.”

Dean also filed an amendment to protect the identities of survivors and victims of Jeffery Epstein. According to the announcement, the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act mandated the Department of Justice to publish all unclassified materials related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

“The safety ensured by these amendments extend to the survivors of years of grotesque sexual abuse committed and orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein. I cannot begin to grasp the pain, stress, and anger that comes with the DOJ carelessly forcing survivors to relive their trauma publicly on their website,” Dean said. “This amendment has been drafted for survivors, with their input, and has their support. It does not even begin to make amends for the harm caused by that, but getting their information off the DOJ’s website is step one.”

You can read the full text of the amendments here.

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