By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A FAIR Work Commissioner has criticised Monash Health for “ambiguous” security policies that create a “significant conflict” for security officers dealing with violent visitors at its hospitals.
However, in an unfair dismissal decision this month, Commissioner John Ryan upheld Monash Health’s sacking of a security guard who injured a patient in Dandenong Hospital’s emergency department.
The patient, who was sitting on a trolley at the time, had hit a clinician with a “glancing blow” to the mouth.
In an ensuing struggle with the guard, the patient was pulled off the trolley, falling face-first and sustaining a broken jaw and cut chin.
The commissioner found the guard used “excessive and unnecessary” force, though he thought the guard did not intend to injure the patient nor intended to pull her off the trolley.
Monash Health had contended the guard was not following hospital policy because he could only restrain a patient when instructed to do so by a clinician.
However, under questioning, the hospital’s security services group manager conceded it was proper for the guard to prevent the patient striking the clinician.
“At its simplest, the policies are misleading,” Commissioner Ryan stated.
“At its worst the policies create a significant conflict for a security officer.”
Health Services Union officials, representing the guard, were bemused by the decision and were considering legal options.
Last year, after the guard’s dismissal, his colleagues told the Journal they were being denied the use of reasonable force to protect staff from violent visitors at the emergency department.
Guards past and present said they had regularly faced drug-fuelled or mentally ill visitors armed with bladed weapons such as machetes, yet had been forbidden to carry handcuffs, batons or capsicum foam.
One guard estimated they seized a knife a week yet were forbidden by managers to apply so much as an armlock.
Patients high on crystal methamphetamine (ice) were almost impossible to physically restrain, the guard said.
‘‘A 35-kilo skinny kid on ice can pick me up off the ground.
“It takes three guards to hold them down,’’ he said.
‘‘If we could use handcuffs and batons the environment would be safer. At the moment we’re not allowed to put a person on the ground or do anything.
‘‘We’re not allowed to do our job.’’
A Monash Health spokesman said security officers at Dandenong Hospital do an “excellent job” in a “complex and dynamic clinical environment”.
“Based on feedback, our policy is currently being formally amended to explicitly provide security officers the ability to initiate restraint under clearly defined circumstances.”
He said a code grey protocol for dealing with violent unarmed offenders was implemented at the hospital last July – after the incident leading to the guard’s dismissal.
