By Casey Neill
Hospital safety and help for drug users featured in two health boost announcements for Dandenong.
On Thursday 23 February, Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams announced that Monash Health had secured funding from the $20 million Health Service Violence Prevention Fund.
At Dandenong Hospital, the cash will install additional CCTV cameras and create the ability to lockdown the facility from a centralised location.
The Casey and Dandenong hospitals will also receive CCTV cameras and electronic access controls and doors at entrance points in key areas including the emergency department, maternity birth unit and diagnostic imaging.
The Victorian Auditor-General’s Report into Occupational Health Violence Against Healthcare Workers found nurses, doctors, paramedics and other healthcare workers face particular risks because “they are at the frontline when it comes to dealing with people in stressful, unpredictable and potentially volatile situations”.
“Monash Health workers and their patients will now be safer and more secure, thanks to this funding,” Ms Williams said.
“Dandenong has an incredibly dedicated health and mental health workforce who deserve to feel safe and protected in the important work that they do.”
The State Government is also funding a public awareness campaign to reduce violence in Victorian hospitals.
Later that day, the State Government announced Dandenong as one of six locations for a new outreach service to personally follow up drug users who survived an overdose.
Mental Health Minister Martin Foley said that research showed overdose survivors were especially vulnerable to further overdose.
The service will operate in the same areas as a peer based workers program, which includes Dandenong.
Mr Foley made the announcement in a keynote address on National Family Drug Support Day.
The program is part of a $1.3 million package that will subsidise the cost of naloxone to drug users or families struggling to afford it.
Naloxone can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and allow time for an ambulance to attend.
Mr Foley said that expanding training and distribution of naloxone to peers, families and communities was an important part of strengthening Victoria’s response to overdose.
