WORKSAFE inspectors cleared Dandenong Hospital three times in the past seven years in response to employee safety concerns.
A WorkSafe spokeswoman said hospital staff on each occasion had complained that “more needed to be done to manage aggressive or violent behaviour”.
She said employers had a legal obligation to ensure employees and members of the public weren’t exposed to health or safety risks.
“On each occasion, inspectors were either satisfied that procedures for managing aggressive behaviour were appropriate at that time or the hospital was reviewing safety procedures in consultation with staff.”
The last request for WorkSafe to inspect the hospital was in June 2011.
Former hospital security guard Patrick Collins told the Journal that during the inspections hospital managers downplayed the dangers, and talked up the policies that were to be put in place.
“After the inspections, nothing was done with those policies.”
He said that during his tenure, hospital managers had rejected a staff-conducted survey showing widespread safety fears.
The 2010 survey found more than 90 per cent of emergency department staff had witnessed or been subjected to assaults, and that 42 per cent of emergency department staff and 75 per cent of staff in other wards had felt unsafe in the hospital.
The Journal has seen an email issued by a hospital manager, warning staff not to take part in the survey.
This week, after a threatened emergency nurse strike, Monash Health agreed to implement a Code Grey policy — a “game plan” for staff to deal with unarmed aggressors — by July 1.
Monash Health is believed to be the only Victorian hospital operator still not to have an articulated Code Grey policy, despite express recommendations by a 2011 state inquiry into hospital violence.
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