The Gauteng Department of Health has stepped up security around health facilities following a number of attacks on staff by mentally ill patients.
Department spokesperson, Kwara Kekana says security personnel have been placed at casualty departments to assist with psychiatric patients.
This comes after 41 attacks on medical staff were reported between January last year and November 2021.
“As part of efforts to reduce attacks on hospital staff by mental healthcare patients in public hospitals, the Gauteng Department of Health provides continuous training to its staff on how to manage aggressive patients,” she says.
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Various measures put in place
Kekana says the reported attacks vary. She says it is mainly nurses, doctors, and security guards who are either assaulted or bitten by mental healthcare patients.
She said in one incident, a patient at the Sedibeng Health District pulled a lightbulb from the ceiling. The patient then attacked staff.
“The 41 attacks happened in 10 healthcare facilities in the province. There were 12 incidents reported at the Far East Rand Hospital, while seven were from the Leratong Hospital, six at the Pretoria West Hospital, five at the Tembisa Tertiary Hospital. There were also four incidents at the Jubilee Hospital, three at the Odi Hospital, two at the Tara H Moross Psychiatric Hospital and one each at the Lenasia South DistrictHospital and Levai Mbatha Community Healthcare center,” Kekana says.
The department says various measures have been put in place to reduce attacks on staff. Some of the measures include sedating mental patients, where necessary when they arrive at a facility.
“In other instances, mental healthcare patients are admitted to 72-hour observation units immediately. Doctors and nurses accompany each other when attending to mental healthcare patients,” Kekana says.
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