source : the age
Victorian emergency room doctors and nurses are being increasingly assaulted at work, with the number of violent workplace incidents reported at public hospitals soaring 44 per cent in the past three years.
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine Victoria branch chair Associate Professor Mark Putland said healthcare workers across the state were being bitten, punched, pushed, kicked, spat on and verbally abused, leading to widespread burnout, psychological harm, and driving staff out of the profession.
“It’s increasing. It’s getting worse,” the Melbourne emergency doctor said. “Getting punched, shoved, kicked and particularly being spat on is a routine experience now.”
Putland said healthcare workers across the state were frequently being verbally abused, bitten, punched, pushed, kicked and spat on.Joe Armao
Putland said there are had also been a troubling rise in “virulent verbal abuse”, which was often sexualised or racialised in nature.
“This is extremely damaging and really, really hard on staff,” he said.
“It makes it really difficult for them to front up and provide care again the next day. Female staff, in particular, cop a lot of horrific sexualised abuse.”
As Victoria heads towards a state election in November, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia are demanding action from all sides of politics to support healthcare workers who are being subjected to record levels of violence.
They want 24/7 dedicated, specially trained security guards stationed in every emergency department, along with a specialised taskforce with a direct reporting line to the health minister, to ensure a coordinated response to tackle violence in hospitals.
Putland warned security remained variable and patchy in smaller hospitals and regional health services and clinicians wanted to see teams of five specialist trained security guards rolled out at every hospital.
Last year, the state’s public hospitals recorded nearly 24,000 violent incidents, a 21 per cent spike from the previous year and a 44 per cent increase from 2022-23, equating to some 65 incidents every day.
The Age has revealed broken noses and dislocated shoulders were among the serious injuries sustained by healthcare workers on the job as healthcare workers warned more patients were carrying weapons into emergency departments.
Healthcare workers warned the state’s hospitals were on track again to reach unprecedented levels of violence this year.
The most recent data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed in the 2024/25 financial year at least 230 healthcare workers were hospitalised after being assaulted at work in Victoria.
The state recorded the second-highest number of violent assaults in Australia, behind NSW, where 242 healthcare workers were hospitalised.
Assault-related hospitalisations of Australian healthcare workers have more than doubled in the past decade.
Putland said every emergency healthcare worker had experienced severe verbal abuse or violence.
“This could be being told that that person’s going to kill you or come after your family or do other horrible things and hearing them say revolting things to the person next to you,” he said.
“This is causing profound harm and physical and psychological trauma to people who have dedicated their lives and careers to caring for others when they need it most.”
Etched in his memory are his own traumatic encounters with unpredictable patients.
“I can think of two people over the years, where I’ve just found myself standing in the corridor, face to face with someone who, in that particular moment, is absolutely terrifying,” Putland said.
“You’re left wondering if they’re [security] going to get here in time this time.”
College of Emergency Nursing Australasia national president Associate Professor Kelli Innes said nurses were also reporting huge increases in violence and aggression.
“Both physical and verbal violence is increasing, and that’s really affecting staff wellbeing, and it impacts patient safety because the ED becomes an unsafe environment for everybody,” Innes said.
“Unless the government acts, we risk losing more highly skilled and experienced people from an already pressured workforce.”
She said any security guards who worked in hospitals must be trained in de-escalation and trauma-informed care, including how to manage people in the grips of a mental health crisis or those who may be under the influence of substances.
Data from the Victorian government showed that between January and March, upwards of 3000 people spent more than 24 hours in a hospital emergency department.
Doctors and nurses are also calling for at least 2000 more in-patient beds and a ministerial directive that no patient remain in a Victorian emergency department for more than 24 hours.
“This represents a critical safety threshold requiring urgent whole-of-hospital escalation and intervention,” the emergency healthcare colleges said.
In the past year, more 13,000 Victorians have spent more than 24 hours in an emergency department.
“We lost our grip around the time of the pandemic, and it’s just blown out,” Putland said.
Mentally unwell and elderly people were the bulk of patients spending days in emergency due to a lack of beds.
“The great majority of people with mental health conditions are not violent or aggressive,” Putland said. “But mental health patients in the ED are at the very extreme end of their illness and, when they’re stuck there for a long time, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Putland said there were many reasons for increased violence and aggression in the emergency department including overcrowding, rising wait times, elevated drug and alcohol use, underinvestment in general practice, and wave of patients presenting with complex needs.
He said demand for care was also intensifying due to Australia’s ageing population, while a shortage of mental health beds and community services meant people were often critically unwell by the time they reached the emergency department.
The physician has also observed a troubling eroding of public trust in healthcare institutions in recent years.
“People don’t respond to healthcare workers in the way that they used,” he said.
He warned that unless occupational violence was tackled, Victoria faced the “inevitable” tragedy of a healthcare worker or patient being killed in an emergency department, alongside a wave of burnt-out staff quitting or reducing their hours.
“At some point, somebody’s going to be killed in a Victorian hospital in one of these episodes, and I can’t even bear to think what the consequences of that will be,” he said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said violence was escalating in the state’s emergency departments and the Liberal party had vowed if elected to roll out 70 protective services officers across seven hospitals as part of a two-year pilot to curb this.
“There’s a very complex web of problems inside hospitals that the Labor government has failed to understand or address,” she said. “The government’s had 12 years to address this.”
A Victorian government spokeswoman said violence and aggression towards healthcare workers was never acceptable.
“We know there is more work to do to keep our workforce safe, which is why we are working closely with unions, clinicians and health services on measures that will make a real difference,” she said.
The state government said it had invested more than $47 million in occupational violence and aggression initiatives and de-escalation training for frontline health workers.
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Melissa Cunningham is a health reporter for The Age. She has previously covered crime and justice.Connect via X or email.
