Reported incidents of violence against Bendigo Health staff are on the slide and are significantly lower than other regional centres, according to the hospital’s 2017-18 annual report.
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Tabled in parliament last week, the report details 290 reported incidents of occupational violence against staff compared to 347 the previous year, and 404 in 2015-16.
The 290 incidents equate to around one per ten full-time equivalent employees, and around four per cent of those incidents resulted in a staff injury, illness or condition.
Over the same period, Ballarat Health Services had almost 2200 reported cases. Echuca, Goulburn Valley Health and Heathcote all had lower incidents than Bendigo but higher ratios of violence per full-time equivalent staff.
Bendigo Health’s executive director of people and culture Andrea Noonan attributed the almost 30 per cent drop in recorded instances over three years to facilities at the new hospital and a heightened focus by the hospital on managing occupational violence.
Ms Noonan, chair of the hospital’s occupational health and safety committee, said she was confident the majority of incidents had been recorded.
The figures come amid Health and Community Services Union claims of ongoing violence and threats to nurses in the hospital’s adult psychiatric unit.
Nurses reported occupational assaults – including verbal – multiple times per shift, and physical assaults at least once every two weeks, HACSU claimed earlier this month.
Staff in the unit took their concerns to HACSU, including that management had refused to put up anti-violence posters and were not following up instances of assaults, all of which was denied by Bendigo Health.
Ms Noonan said she was confident all incidents at the unit were recorded.
“If we just take the past fortnight – there are incidents in certain units on a recurring basis – that are recorded in the system,” she said.
Since 2015-16, the state government required Victorian public health services to monitor and record incidents of occupational violence in their annual reports.
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