Clinics Violent attacks by patients

More attacks from violent patients in hospitals

07/02/2015

Hospitals are actually a place where ill and injured people receive help. But more and more doctors and nurses are being attacked by violent patients in their work. By no means all of the perpetrators are mentally ill or drunk.

Especially in emergency rooms it comes to attacks
In fact, clinics are a place where people should be relieved of their pain. But more and more often there is pain inflicted on some people. For example, violent patients in large hospitals are now almost everyday, and not just in psychiatry, according to a news agency dpa. Accordingly, doctors and caregivers, especially in emergency rooms, are increasingly being insulted and threatened, thrown over objects or even physically assaulted. „The white coat does not protect for a long time“, says Günter Niklewski, chief physician at the Nuremberg Hospital. The hospital has now taken an unusual step: as violence has increased there, private security personnel have recently been present in the most affected departments.

New designer drugs are a particular problem
A senior physician had been beaten hospitalized by a patient at the clinic half a year ago. „The situation was crystal clear“, so Niklewski. As the physician emphasizes, the offender had only had sleep disturbances, so he was not a psychiatric patient. „Because we can handle that.“ Those doctors and nurses who deal with mentally ill people every day are specially trained and therefore know how to behave. „What we are talking about is the general brutality“, analyzes Niklewski. Patients, as well as their relatives and accompanying persons, would become violent much faster. It is said to be full of insults and threats, sexual assault, spitting and scratching, throwing glasses, infusion bottles and furniture. According to the information, the new designer drugs are a particular problem. „They often produce transient psychoses. When people wake up, they immediately feel threatened and beat“, explains Niklewski.

Long waiting times in the emergency room
Also the long waiting times in the emergency room are a factor, at which more and more violence ignites. As Human Resources Director Peter Schuh says, many would not understand that urgent cases are treated faster and less urgent ones have to wait. In addition, most of the emergency rooms were chronically overcrowded. An amplifying factor is not enough staff here, says Johanna Knüppel from the Federal Association for Nursing Professions: „The shortage of staff or reduced staff costs also means that today employees are often alone with patients. As a result, the threat and the feeling of danger is greater than ten years ago.“

Victims of verbal violence and physical attacks
Last year, more than 70 percent of respondents to a Nuremberg hospital staff survey involving more than 600 colleagues reported having been victims of verbal or physical violence - around half of respondents even within the past half year. „That surprised us then“, so shoe. The survey confirmed the already existing impression that violence had increased recently. And a study by the German Association for Health Care and Welfare (BGW) from 2009 confirms the trend: at that time, almost 80 percent of hospital employees said they had been victims of verbal violence and 56 percent also reported physical attacks. Andrea Gerstner from the Bavarian Hospital Society says that in a working group of just under 30 hospitals „almost all participants said“ to have, „that violence and violence has increased in recent years“.

Security service in intensive care
Violence in the hospital is not a new phenomenon, but: „If that used to happen, that was theme number one in the canteen for a week“, so shoe. „Today is almost everyday.“ However, there are few reliable statistics on how violence against doctors and caregivers has developed. Accident insurers, for example, only count cases that lead to at least three days' incapacity to work and it is not recorded whether a patient or a colleague was the aggressor. In addition, many cases are not reported at all. „The results of our survey have led us to actively tackle the issue“, explains the Nuremberg hospital board Alfred Estelmann. The dedicated security service is there at night and on weekends in the emergency room and in the intensive care unit, where especially alcohol and drug patients are cared for. „The presence of the security service is immediately very de-escalating“, so shoe. In addition, employees have been given a guide to educate them on how to handle violence and aggression, how to defend themselves, and whom to turn to. The clinic is also upgrading its internal phones with a special alarm button. Another measure is posters that have been hung up. It reads: „Violence stops us having fun.“

Family doctors are also victims of violence
But it is not only in hospitals that doctors are victims of violence. Even more than one in ten GPs becomes victims in their work. This emerges from a study of the Technical University in Munich from last year. Accordingly, eleven percent of family doctors experience at least once a year „serious“ Aggression of patients and a total of 23 percent of them have already made this experience in their professional life. When „heavy“ were scored by the researchers, as well as sharp verbal abuse and sexual harassment. (Ad)

Picture: JMG