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LAST YEAR, THERE were at least 1,000 instances where staff were assaulted in Irish hospitals.
Of these, 726 of these involved a nurse being assaulted but a spokesperson for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation told TheJournal.ie that these official figures from the HSE are “the tip of the iceberg” as many assaults go unreported.
In 2018, the number of assaults reported on hospital staff was 948.
Figures released via parliamentary question to Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly also show that the most assaults happened in hospitals under the Ireland East Hospital Group.
Its hospitals includes the Mater and St Vincent’s in Dublin, along with Our Lady’s in Navan and Wexford General.
Here’s a breakdown of assaults on staff up to 9 December last year:
And here’s a breakdown by hospital group
In its response to O’Reilly, the HSE said it has “long been proactive” in encouraging staff to report all incidents.
Incidents are broken down into harmful incidents, a no harm incident, near misses, a dangerous occurrence or a complaint.
“When considering the figures it should be noted that staff are encouraged to report all ‘near misses’ and incidents – even those that do not result in harm,” the HSE said.
“Hence, the number of incident reports should not be considered as indicative of a level of harm.”
The HSE added that funding was recently set aside and distributed nationally for the training of instructors to equip workers with skills around risk identification and the management of violence and aggression.
An INMO spokesperson said that it’s clear from the figures that nurses are “in the firing line when it comes to assaults at work”.
“These figures are the tip of the iceberg, as we know that many other assaults go unreported,” the spokesperson said. “Frontline workers often don’t have time to report or do extra paperwork.
A key driver of assaults is overcrowding. Long wait times, packed wards and short staffing can create a pressure cooker environment for patients and staff alike. The safety of our members depends on keeping wait times to a minimum. This simply means putting more staff on wards and in emergency departments.
Sinn Féin’s O’Reilly told TheJournal.ie: “Overcrowded, understaffed services create a pressure cooker environment. The INMO have highlighted how patients can get frustrated at conditions and a tiny minority unacceptably lash out at staff.
That means frontline staff being put at risk for conditions they are not responsible for.
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It’s totally unacceptable behaviour, no frontline staff should have to deal with abusive scrotes.
Mandatory 12 month sentence of community service for offenders.
You assault health staff then you should be banned from all public hospitals for life and refused treatment, if you die then more luck the country is much much better off with our you. Now the first political party to make that part of their manifesto gets my vote for life.
@Pat Lonergan: Patients who are delirious, demented or psychotic might hit out/be violent whilst unwell and can’t be held responsible for this – increased security measures/personnel is the answer. For those who are compis mentis/intoxicated there should be a zero tolerance policy for both verbal and physical aggression. Verbal abuse – much of it racist/sexist/personal insults- is prevalent and usually just accepted by front line staff as part of the job. There should be a zero tolerance policy for that.
Seen it myself in St Vincent’s last night people carrying on like they were getting bad service in a hotel ,kick in the f***ing hole some people need ..embarrassing that they are the seekers of help and behave like this
@James Harbourne: I see the fraperoom is working over time, there are no fraperooms in SF on SM just SF supporters and the shill has been overwhelmed. Good night
@Dave Stewart: Dude??
Assaults on any emergency service staff should come with a mandatory sentence . We should bring in felony type laws here . If convicted of a felony then a judge should have no option but to send someone to prison for a fixed amount of time . As for prison spaces why can’t the government privatise and allow companies to build and service a mega prison where all these scrotes are housed .?
@Aaron Luke: I agree Aaron, however I believe it should apply when anyone doing their job is attacked, Teachers, Guards, Bus & Taxi drivers, Fast food restaurants employees etc etc.
@John Mulligan: fair point .
Very sad. Still in hospital myself, have been since Christmas Day, and nothing but praise for the medical staff. They put up with crap from many direction yet still amaze me with their dedication to service.
But there are grumpy patients who think it’s their right to 5 star around the clock attention and at least verbally bully the nurses. What is the answer? Isolate them and put them into high discipline wards? The human rights card would be out plus, ‘what’s that got to do with healing’ protests and litigation lawyers.
There are too few hospital staff as it is. We do not want to scare them away from the profession. Very sad news.
Ffg fault lol sori just thought is beat the sf bots
@Colm Curran: Sinn Fein would stop this sort of violence in hospitals.
@ApexSnow: Russian bots working overtime
@ApexSnow: absolutely SF would stop the violence in hospitals by starting up a protection squad and a protection racket same applies for transport police masked men on trains
@ApexSnow: they know so much about violence bless them
No excuse for assaulting people who are doing their jobs, nor are there excuses for possibly the most inefficiently run health service in the EU and beyond.
Any assault on medical personnel that can’t be explained by medical conditions like dementia, confusion and aggression resulting from a head injury and so on should be treated as a refusal of care and treatment and the perpetrators should be thrown out of the hospital or surgery and prosecuted.
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