Left: From left, Victoria Police Inspector Tess Walsh, Dandenong District Division of General Practice CEO Anne Peek and doctor of 25 years Leanne Rowe will be among those working on a safety tool kit to protect doctors and medical staff from violent patients.By Shaun Inguanzo
CONCERNED Greater Dandenong doctors are planning to fight a wave of violent patients with a safety toolkit developed hand-in-hand with Victoria Police.
This week’s announcement coincides with a survey revealing almost 50 per cent of the region’s doctors had dealt with aggressive or abusive patients in the past 12 months.
Doctors from the Dandenong District Division of General Practice (DDDGP) are planning to avoid violent incidents, such as the one that led to last year’s stabbing murder of Noble Park doctor Khulod Maarouf-Hassan at her Chandler Road clinic, and have called on police to help compile a safety toolkit.
The $200,000 project will launch in the second half of the year and will be rolled out in the cities of Greater Dandenong and Casey before the rest of Victoria and later the entire country.
The toolkit will instruct doctors on safe practice with tips including increased lighting at night, not working alone, and how to create an action plan to escape violent patients.
It will include a safety checklist and will be made available on the Internet.
Dr Maarouf-Hassan, a respected community figure, was stabbed to death by a patient at her Chandler Road clinic in June.
DDDGP chief executive Anne Peek said the safety concerns had since skyrocketed among doctors.
“The issue has escalated over the last couple of years,” she said.
“(Dr Maarouf-Hassan’s) death escalated the feelings of anxiety and led to GPs approaching the DDDGP for support.”
The DDDGP this week revealed the results of a safety survey among its 290 members from Greater Dandenong and Casey.
Among the findings were that almost half of the doctors surveyed had encountered aggressive or violent patients in the past 12 months.
Only 17.5 per cent of doctors said they felt ‘very safe’ working at night, and only 55 per cent felt ‘safe’ during the daytime.
And 32 per cent of doctors’ practices had no plan or protocol to deal with violent behaviour.
Dr Leanne Rowe, a close friend of Dr Maarouf-Hassan, welcomed the $200,000 toolkit and said doctors were considering a system of reporting unwanted behaviour.
She said the safety issue was at the top of the list of the industry’s concerns.
Dr Rowe and the Victorian Medical Women’s Society held a forum on Tuesday night with guest speakers including Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Dr Mukesh Haikerwal and Victoria Police Inspector and head of crime prevention Tess Walsh.
Dr Rowe said reporting incidents to police was the next big step for doctors.
Inspector Walsh said privacy laws protecting patients’ information could be overriden if threats were made to the doctor.
But she said determining which behaviour was criminal and which was medical would prove a difficult hurdle for any such system.
The toolkit’s funding is expected to be sourced from a variety of channels, including the DDDGP, Victoria Police, WorkCover, and other medical associations including the AMA.
Victoria Police and the DDDGP will begin the toolkit’s research with focus groups of doctors, nurses, receptionists and other staff members in coming weeks.
