Nurses union demands immediate implementation of a plan to protect medical staff after a nurse was allegedly spat on
A nurse has allegedly been abused and spat on by a hospital patient – now the union says a plan to stop attacks on frontline medical staff must be immediately put in place.
SA News
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The nurses and midwifery union is urging immediate implementation of a new plan to protect medical staff after a nurse was allegedly spat on in Mount Gambier Hospital’s emergency department on Sunday.
Chief executive officer for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation for South Australia, Professor Elizabeth Dabars, said the recent attack was unacceptable.
Police were called to Mount Gambier Hospital about 9.30am Sunday after reports a woman in the Emergency Department verbally abused the uniformed nurse and then spat in her face.
The local woman, Veronica Jane Hay, 52, was arrested and appeared in the Mount Gambier Magistrates Court on Monday charged with assaulting a prescribed emergency worker. She was remanded in custody to appear again next week.
It follows an incident in Hindley Street on May 20, where a nurse wearing blue scrubs was spat at. A woman, 42, of no fixed address was charged with assaulting a prescribed emergency worker, and did not apply for bail.
Professor Dabars said ANMF SA had recently submitted their bargaining enterprise agreement to SA Health, urging early implementation of a plan that would see increased security, new training for staff and redesigning environments within hospitals and medical centres to prevent future assaults. She said SA Health agreed to early implementation, but has not made their action plan available publicly for a month.
“The reality is healthcare workers are facing – unbelievably so – the risk of physical harm every single time they go to work, so we need urgent action now,” Prof Dabars said.
“Being spat on clearly is unacceptable both from a transmission of disease perspective, that is a real risk particularly in this environment of coronavirus.”
She said the implementation of the plan by SA Health could have prevented Sunday’s assault.
“We have been very concerned about the escalation of violent and aggressive behaviour within the hospital and healthcare setting against nurses midwives careworkers and other healthcare workers for some time.
“It is completely unacceptable behaviour – it needs to be eradicated.”
An SA Health spokeswoman said the department was in the final stages of releasing a framework to prevent and deal with challenging behaviour faced by health care workers.
“Local health networks have committees to actively monitor and work through strategies to implement learnings, continually improve and prevent recurrence,” she said.
“We are working to continually improve our safety culture and ensure the engagement of our people in active risk assessment and management, prevention strategies and reviewing incidents.”