Mounting attacks on South Australian health workers

Latest SA Health figures obtained by the Sunday Mail show there were 6219 "Code Black" distress calls made by hospital staff in the past 12 months, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.

Staff shortages, mental health patients and new incident reporting systems have all been cited for the rise in "hospital rage".

The Department of Health figures for 2009-10 reveal that:

THE Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woodville South recorded the most Code Blacks with 1557 calls - or 30 a week;

THE Lyell McEwin Hospital in Elizabeth Vale was second with 1351 reports, almost 26 a week;

FLINDERS Medical Centre staff reported 1162 Code Blacks this year, or 22 incidents a week;

CODE Blacks at the Royal Adelaide Hospital jumped 57 per cent from 843 in 2008-09 to 1130 this year; and

CODE Blacks at Noarlunga Hospital more than doubled from 91 in 2008-09 to 216 this year.

It comes as new figures released to the Sunday Mail under Freedom of Information revealed 52 reports of inappropriate sexual behaviour by patients towards hospital staff or other patients from July 2005 to October 2009.

Of those, 13 cases were allegations of sexual assault, and eight were referred to police.

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Andrew Lavender described the spike in hospital violence and reports of inappropriate sexual behaviour as "very concerning".

He said waiting times, drugs and alcohol and the "stresses" of the emergency department all played "a big part" in the increase.

 He said the cases of inappropriate sexual behaviour seemed "relatively small" because it was probably under-reported. "Code Blacks are something that occur on a regular basis and it shouldn't be, but it's a fact of life," he said.

SA Health Services Union secretary Jorge Navas said mental illness was a leading factor in hospital rage. He said many of his members often felt scared going to work.

"The Government's deinstitutionalisation of mental health patients has created an environment where they don't have anywhere to go, so they're left sitting in the emergency department," he said.

The public hospital doctors' union said the rise in Code Blacks - emergency calls made by hospital staff when they are threatened or assaulted - was partly because of a lack of medical staff, with longer waiting times resulting in more angry patients and their families lashing out from "hospital rage".

SA Salaried Medical Officers Association industrial officer Andrew Murray said: "Hospital rage is caused when there are not enough doctors and beds to treat people. It arises from the pressures in the system - people might be quite reasonable when they turn up but become threatening because of all the waiting." He said the QEH, in particular, had a "perennial problem" in attracting doctors as it was regarded as a "second-level" hospital, and the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service, which covers the Royal Adelaide, Lyell McEwin, QEH and Modbury, was spending up to $100,000 a month on locums in the emergency department because of the doctor shortage.

Spokespeople for the Noarlunga Hospital and RAH attributed the rise in Code Blacks to better staff training and improved reporting methods which corrected the under-reporting of incidents in 2008-09.

Noarlunga Hospital acting general manager Patty Weeding attributed the rise of Code Blacks at the hospital to better staff training to call for help when needed, with patient aggression previously under-reported. RAH acting general manager Professor Villis Marshall also attributed the 57 per cent rise in Code Blacks to a new recording method, saying before 2008 issues which did not involve patient aggression were also recorded as Code Blacks, meaning actual Code Blacks were under-reported.

The QEH would not comment, instead diverting all questions to SA Health. Health Minister John Hill said the Government had changed laws in 2007 so that anyone who assaulted a health worker received an extra 50 per cent on their aggravated assault penalty. "Any assault, verbal or physical, on a member of staff is totally unacceptable and inexcusable," he said.