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Hospital workers suffer ‘daily’ violence threats

Aug 20, 2014
The longer a mental patient is in Emergency, the more likely there will be a 'code black'.

The longer a mental patient is in Emergency, the more likely there will be a 'code black'.

Medical staff are threatened with violence several times a day at the Lyell McEwin Emergency Department, the doctors’ union says.

“It’s an event that occurs many times a day, every day; duress alarms activated, security guards called,” said South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association (SASMOA) spokesperson and Lyell McEwin senior emergency doctor, David Pope.

The advocate for mental health patients in hospitals contacted Health Minister Jack Snelling during the past two weeks to express concerns about booming demand from mental health patients at all of the state’s hospitals, and how this can lead to violent incidents.

Principal Community Visitor Maurice Corcoran told InDaily this morning there was a strong correlation between a mental health patient’s length of stay and the likelihood of ‘code blacks’ – where a staff member is threatened with violence.

“The longer mental health patients are in an ED (emergency department) the more likely it is that there will be code blacks,” Corcoran said.

“I have had cause to write to the minister fairly recently, not just about the Lyell McEwin, but about the state of our concerns in relation to EDs across all the metro hospitals, and in particular the demand that has been on them from mental health patients presentations.”

Yesterday, InDaily revealed medical staff claims that it was “the norm” for mental health patients to be confined to cubicles at the emergency department for between four and five days at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The claims were contained in a SASMOA inspection report of the site.

InDaily understands a strategy is being developed by health authorities in response to the report, involving the possible separation of mental health patients from general medical patients to improve safety at the hospital.

Corcoran said hospital emergency departments were often the worst option for someone suffering acute psychosis.

“It’s a very high stimulus environment and they need the opposite – they need low stimulus.”

He said many mental health patients at emergency departments become increasingly distressed and aggressive towards staff when confined to windowless cubicles.

He said that often, mental health patients are also nicotine-dependent, and that preventing them from smoking only increases agitation and exacerbates their condition.

“The most concerning thing is that they end up being restrained either chemically or physically.”

Corcoran said that since early this year there has been a surge in demand on the hospital system from acute mental health patients.

“It used to be unusual to find people staying in the emergency department for three, four or five days,” he said.

“But in recent months, you can look at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, you can look at the Royal Adelaide (Hospital) and places like the Lyell McEwin, where there are regularly people [in that situation].

“Late June, there was a patient had been in the ED for five days, and another person had been in there four days.”

InDaily contacted the Health Minister for a response.

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