Victoria’s doctors and nurses being assaulted in record numbers

It’s the new scourge nurses and doctors on our hospital front lines are being forced to contend with — a record number of patients and their families are attacking healthcare workers.

Violence and aggression towards hospital workers has hit record numbers with reports surging 25 per cent in one year.

Special assessment rooms are being built at hospitals to protect staff from especially volatile patients. But it’s their visitors and families who are also lashing out.

State government figures provided to the Sunday Herald Sun show nearly 14,500 cases of aggression against hospital staff were recorded in the 2017/18 financial year.

They included not only physical harm but intimidating behaviour and verbal abuse.

Violence against nurses has also put hospital management in the gun.

Austin Health and Monash Health will face court this month charged with failing to provide safe workplaces.

State Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said nurses and doctors should never be “punching bags”. “It’s never OK that they’re abused, threatened or assaulted just for doing their job,” Ms Mikakos said

Geelong Hospital’s emergency department has seen many ‘code greys’ called. Picture: file photo, Alan Barber.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said it was not only mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse fuelling violence in hospitals, but people unable to manage their frustration.

“Nurses and midwives, who are helping others, should go home to their families and loved ones uninjured,’’ Victorian branch acting secretary Paul Gilbert said

The number of attacks being reported at major hospital providers increased in the 2017/18 financial year — jumping 56 per cent to 1327 at Monash Health alone.

Melbourne Health reported nearly 2000 incidents and Ballarat Health close to 2200.

Barwon Health posted a near 25 per cent jump in ‘code greys’ — called when staff or patients feel threatened.

Almost 40 per cent were at Geelong Hospital’s emergency department.

Gordon Legal principal lawyer Rachel Schutze said healthcare workers who were victims of violence regularly contacted the firm

“They are injured and traumatised when they are just trying to do their jobs helping people which is disturbing,” she said.

The state government noted education and awareness programs were empowering medical workers to speak up and report incidents.

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos. Picture: AAP

Figures from WorkSafe — which runs targeted inspections and campaigns — showed claims by nurses seriously assaulted in hospitals fell more than 40 per cent over the past two years to 59 last financial year.

Ms Mikakos said hospital security across the state had been “ beefed up”, and tougher safety standards introduced.

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“And we’re building behavioural assessment rooms to treat patients who pose a threat to others — all while making it clear that this type of behaviour is not on,” she said.

Department of Health data shows overall rates of occupational violence towards hospital staff in the 2017-18 financial year rose by a quarter on the previous 12 month period, to 14,474 incidents.

The reports include incidents which did not result in physical harm but caused staff to feel concerned, frightened or threatened through intimdating behaviour or verbal abuse.

Victorian Crime Statistics Agency data shows 539 assaults were reported on healthcare sites last year, compared with 335 in 2015.

NURSE: ASSAULT ‘RUINED MY LIFE’

After nursing for decades, Jodie (not her real name) thought she had experienced it all.

As a senior mental health nurse, she had been verbally abused by patients raging on ice and seen others take their lives.

But nothing prepared her for being punched directly in the face by a patient she was trying to help in a Melbourne hospital two years ago.

Dealing with mental illness and cancer - and frustrated he could not have a smoke - the patient lashed out and punched Jodie hard in the eye.

The injury has resulted in ongoing sight difficulties, but worse, caused Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which has manifested itself in racing heart episodes and night terrors.

Jodie, 58, said she was so disabled by fear and anxiety following the attack, she was now unable to work as a nurse and at times struggled to even shower and leave the house.

‘Jodie’ was trying to help a patient at a Melbourne Hospital in 2017 when she was punched in the face by a patient, leaving her with an eye injury and PTSD.

“My life is a living nightmare whether I am asleep or awake,” she said. “This assault, which should never have happened, has destroyed my confidence and ruined my life. I just can’t seem to move forward from that one punch.”

While she initially filed assault charges against the patient, she later withdrew them because of his serious mental illness and other health complications, Jodie said.

Slater and Gordon workers’ compensation lawyer James Carlson said the firm was now investigating a potential claim against the hospital *Jodie* was working in.

“We want to get her the support she needs, so she has the ability to cover the medical costs, loss of wages and receive treatment for her permanent eye injury. Our main issue with the hospital is that they didn’t have safe processes in place to deal with dangerous patients like this,” he said. “Hospitals have a duty of care to ensure they meet adequate staffing ratios and find better ways to monitor and handle known difficult patients.”

A nurse for nearly 40 years, Jodie said she witnessed a marked increase in frustrated outbursts by patients on hospital staff after smoking bans were brought in.