A Victorian auditor general’s report has criticised agencies, including Victoria’s work safety watchdog, for not doing enough to protect healthcare employees from “unnecessary and preventable” violence in the workplace.
John Doyle’s report, Occupational Violence Against Healthcare Workers, examined how effectively workers within the healthcare system were being protected from violence and abuse.
The review looked at issues including incidences where paramedics and hospital workers had been attacked in drug or alcohol-fuelled aggression.
The report found employees were reluctant to report these types of incidents because it is seen as “part of the job”.
“One reason for this under-reporting is staff compassion for patients whose aggression arises from a clinical condition,” Mr Doyle’s report found.
“Staff commonly reason that the patient ‘couldn’t help it’.”
He also found there were shortcomings in all audited agencies, including Ambulance Victoria, WorkSafe and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
“Victorian healthcare workers face unnecessary and preventable levels of risk in regards to occupational violence,” the report said.
“There have been systemic failures across all audited agencies in relation to collecting, analysing, and reporting quality data for the purposes of continuous improvement.”
One of the report’s key recommendations was for DHHS and WorkSafe to work together to provide better guidance on the reporting and investigation of workplace violence.
“Despite an array of related initiatives and agencies stated commitment to addressing this problem through policies, procedures and other actions – the current approach to occupational violence against healthcare workers is neither strategic nor coherent.”
Violence against paramedics ‘very common’: union
Acting secretary of the paramedic’s union, Danny Hill, said he was not shocked by the findings.
“We see a lot of our members being regularly assaulted in the job and there is definitely an under reporting of this issue,” he said.
“Assault can be anything from being verbally abused, being spat on being physically threatened or even physically assaulted.
“It’s very, very common and a lot the work that paramedics can be very unpredictable.”
As part of the audit 58 staff were interviewed across a number of health services, from Ambulance Victoria and 89 hospitals across the state.
The report acknowledged all agencies had implemented initiatives to better protect employees.
These initiatives include, more security cameras, duress alarms, improvements to entry points and the redesigning of reception rooms.