Another nurse has been assaulted by a patient at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital less than a week after another serious incident there.
Police were called to the hospital at about 6.30pm on Saturday after a disturbance involving a patient where a 62-year-old female nurse was allegedly assaulted.
Nurse attacks ‘totally unacceptable’
A spike in assaults on nurses will result in extra security at south east Queensland hospitals. Nine News
A 44-year-old Lutwyche woman was charged with serious assault of a public officer, wilful damage and possession of a knife in a public place.
A spokeswoman for Metro North Hospital and Health Service confirmed the incident had occurred.
“We can confirm that a nurse was assaulted by a patient at the RBWH yesterday,” she said.
“Our hospitals are places where people receive health care, not venues for bad behaviour and violence.
“Verbal abuse, threats and physical assaults against our staff are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.
“Importantly, we are doing everything we can to help support all staff involved after yet another senseless act of violence.
A nurse has been assaulted by a patient at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. Photo: Dave Hunt
“Our frontline workers are the backbone of our community and sadly incidents like these are becoming all too common.
“We are working closely with Queensland Police Service to ensure these offenders are prosecuted.”
Queensland Nurses Union state secretary Beth Mole said the incident was another example of unacceptable levels of violence towards nurses.
“The difficulty is we have 16 different hospital and health services and potentially 16 different responses,” Ms Mohle said.
“We need to hone in on who is responsible for keeping people safe because if health workers aren’t safe we can’t keep people safe. It’s an issue about patient safety.”
A report into violence against health workers is being prepared and is expected to be delivered to Health Minister Cameron Dick in the next fortnight.
Ms Mohle said she hoped the report would address the range of issues that affect the safety of health workers in Queensland.
“We need to look at a range of strategies,” she said.
“The issues can be staffing levels, skill mix, inadequate security, inadequate training, poor behaviour on behalf of people there are multiple contributions to the violence.”
But she said it was important that the message that violence against health workers was unacceptable was sent loud and clear.
“We need to send the message to everybody that this is totally unacceptable,” she said.
The nurse injured in Saturday night’s incident was treated for bruising to her hip.
Her alleged offender will appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on June 29.