A spike in assaults at Wollongong Hospital in the past 12 months has led to calls for heightened security measures.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Wollongong MP Paul Scully said NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research statistics revealed there were 16 serious assaults at the hospital from June 2017 to June 2018. He said that represented an increase of 167 per cent on the same period the previous year, when there were six assaults.
Mr Scully said a NSW Labor plan to appoint an additional 250 security staff across the state – and equip them with more skills, powers and weapons – would help better protect staff, patients and visitors.
“Wollongong Hospital shouldn’t be a fight club,” he said. “When you go to hospital, staff and patients and their families shouldn’t have to be worried that they might be subjected to assault.
“These incidents may be caused by issues related to domestic violence or mental health or drug and alcohol; they may be due to anger and frustration over care.
“Whatever the reason we need to equip security staff with the right training, the right powers and the right equipment to be able to retain, detain and defuse situations before they escalate.”
Labor’s plan would see the establishment of a secure hospitals unit within NSW Health, which would oversee security staff and conduct safety audits of the state’s more than 200 hospitals.
“This unit would direct the 250 staff to the areas of highest need, and Wollongong – as a large regional hospital – would be high on the priority list,” Mr Scully said.
“Currently security staff only have the powers of citizen’s arrest and nothing more; we’d like to see them equipped with additional powers similar to special constables who can carry weapons such as pepper spray and batons.
“Extra training would also be implemented so they have the skills to defuse hostile situations.”
HSU national secretary Gerard Hayes said the union had been campaigning for improved hospital security for over a decade, and assaults had escalated in recent times.
Earlier this month, police shot a knife-wielding man in the stomach at Nepean hospital after he allegedly attempted to stab officers and had a note in his car which mentioned a bomb.
“Meantime, on a day-to-day basis, people are being physically and verbally abused in hospitals,” Mr Hayes said. “Unfortunately assaults are increasing at many hospitals, but the number of security staff are not.”
However Wollongong Hospital general manager Nicole Sheppard said the hospital had increased security staff in recent years, to match the increase in presentations.
“We have zero tolerance for violence and aggression – we will remove anyone from the premises who poses a threat to patients, relatives or staff,” she said. “We want to reassure the public that we have an amazing group of security staff with the highest possible training.”
She said NSW Health had invested in a raft of additional security measures at hospitals across the state.
“In Wollongong that includes personal duress alarms for every staff member in the emergency department,” she said.
“It includes an increased number of security cameras right throughout the hospital site, and those cameras are monitored by staff 24 hours a day so that gives us an added level of security.
“We also have security staff located in the emergency department to oversee the waiting room and de-escalate any issues that arise. So there’s a huge amount invested in security right across the site.”
A NSW Health spokesperson added that the data it held on assaults at Wollongong Hospital did not support the anaylsis claimed by NSW Labor.
“NSW Health staff are encouraged to report incidents so that appropriate remedial action can be taken to improve staff safety,” the spokesperson said.
“...In the first two quarters of 2018, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District is showing a lower number of physical incidents impacting staff compared to 2017 and in total, the number of incidents in 2017 was lower than 2016.”
Across NSW, the spokesperson said $19 million had been invested to improve security in emergency departments at public hospitals, upgrading CCTV systems and installing remote locking to public access doors, under the 12 Point Plan on Hospital Security.
