DANDENONG Hospital has new systems in place to deal with violent patients and visitors.
Monash Health last week vowed to immediately increase security guard numbers and coverage and to implement guidelines for responding to violence and attacks from 1 July.
Nurses had threatened to strike last Thursday (2 May) if their calls to address dangers to their health and safety in the emergency department were not answered.
They said they were regularly hit, punched, kicked, bitten and threatened.
But in a meeting on 1 May the Australian Nursing Federation’s (ANF) Victorian Branch and Monash Health agreed to implement a Code Grey system, which gives staff a standard response to follow when confronted with violence and aggression.
They also agreed to add security guards to the emergency department, at least until the Code Grey response was in place, and establish committees to manage the implementation.
“This is a very positive response to the emergency department nurses’ extremely serious concerns for their safety,” ANF Victorian Branch assistant secretary Paul Gilbert said.
The stand-off followed several recent incidents, the latest a dispute over a nurse being demoted for his response to an aggressive visitor on 29 March.
A nurse was bitten in a recent attack on one of the wards, and a man last month threw pieces of concrete at the emergency department.