Pretoria - Gauteng hospital staff have suffered at least 61 attacks at the hands of patients and angry relatives since January 2022 to date.
DA provincial spokesperson for health and member of the Gauteng provincial legislature Jack Bloom said most of the attacks were by mentally ill patients.
This was revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko in a written reply to the Gauteng Legislature.
“Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital had the most attacks, with 21 assaults on staff who were injured on various parts of their bodies. Many nurses were punched in the face and a security guard was hit in the groin.
“There were seven attacks on staff at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, including two nurses and a speech therapist who were bitten on their fingers.”
Bloom said two smaller hospitals in Gauteng – Carletonville and Far East Rand – had nine attacks each. Five of the staff at Far East Rand were bitten by patients.
“According to the MEC, most attacks are by mental health-care users. Others are linked to anger at staff for various reasons such as refusal to buy them items, patients trying to escape or involved in criminal activity,” he said.
“Angry relatives are another danger to hospital staff. At Bertha Gxowa Hospital, a nurse was punched in the face at casualty by escorts of the patient demanding immediate attention for their injured friend.”
The DA in Gauteng said “it is distressing” that so many hospital workers were attacked while trying to assist patients.
“Security needs to be beefed up, with specialised facilities for mentally-ill patients at hospitals where this is lacking to minimise the risk of violence against staff,” said Bloom.
The Gauteng Department of Health said it continued to put measures in place to “empower” health-care workers on how to respond to attacks on staff at health-care facilities.
“Responding to questions at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on incidents of attacks at facilities, MEC for Health and Wellness Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said most of the 61 incidents that took place between January 2022 to date were attributed to mental health-care users, while others related to anger towards staff for various reasons, such as refusal to buy them items or patient trying to escape, angry relatives and patients linked to criminal activities,” said Gauteng Health spokesperson Motalatale Modiba.
He said the attacks included staff being bitten, punched, hit in the face, robbed or assaulted.
“These led to patients either being sedated, restrained, transferred to other wards or facilities or being secluded and, in some instances, cases being opened with the police. The majority of the incidents happened at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital (21), Carletonville Hospital (nine) and Far East Rand Hospital (nine), Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (seven), Thelle Mogoerane Hospital (four) Kopanong Hospital (three), with other facilities accounting for fewer or no incidents,” said Modiba.
MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko said the provincial health department was implementing measures to equip the staff to deal with attacks, including:
• Training staff on how respond to violence in the affected institutions and other facilities.
• Improving the profiling of patients so that attending staff members had access to patient history and were aware of any underlying conditions.
• Providing continuous psychological and emotional support and counselling for staff.
• Advising staff to always follow standard operating procedures when attending to patients.
• Encouraging staff to report incidents to occupation health and safety officers.
• Implementing Gauteng department of health and SAPS memorandum of understanding.
• Educating patients and their relatives on the treatment procedures in order to ensure greater co-operation.
• Installing CCTV cameras at strategic location for monitoring purposes.
“Our goal is to minimise, if not eradicate, such incidents in our facilities,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.
“We have to work with health-care workers and other stakeholders, such as hospital boards, clinic committees and the patients themselves, to curb incidents of attacks inside our facilities. The safety of our staff including patients remains a priority.”
IOL