Ryan Stard pleaded guilty earlier this year to assault causing bodily harm for the March 2015 attack on a male nurse at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital.
The provincial court heard there were mitigating factors that contributed to the attack, including mental health issues.
Stard was given a conditional discharge in court on Tuesday.
The B.C. Nurses' Union calls the judgment unacceptable and disappointing.
President Gayle Duteil says the sentence sends the message that it's okay to beat up health-care workers.
"In the courtroom today, we were compared to police officers and peace officers, and yet the justice system let the nurses of B.C. down," she says.
