Nurses are calling for better protections as they become subject to increasing numbers of assaults in their workplaces.
That meant assault rose from the fourth-leading cause of hospitalisation to the second, accounting for 15 percent of health worker admissions. In comparison, it ranks seventh for the general Australian population, accounting for just 3.8 percent of hospitalisations.
The head and neck were the most commonly injured body parts among healthcare workers, accounting for 24.8 percent of injuries, followed by the trunk (19.2 percent) and the hip and lower limb (17.1 percent).
“This should not be a wake-up call, because nurses and their colleagues have been sounding the alarm about this for years,” said Australian College of Nursing CEO Kathryn Zeitz.
“Health services need to act now to rein in this epidemic of occupational violence. Health service boards must make addressing occupational violence a priority. They need to closely monitor and respond to incidents against their staff and ensure that anti-occupational violence measures are being enforced and working.
“People who show up each day to care for others should not be subject to undue risk of harm to themselves. The unspoken stories here are of those who were injured and never returned to work.”
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said that while the data did not provide a full picture, it reinforced what its members had been telling the union about conditions in health and aged care facilities across the country.
“Nurses, midwives and personal care workers continue to be attacked, abused and intimidated in their workplaces. We also know that workplace violence and aggression is underreported, so the true scale of the problem could be much worse,” said the organisation’s federal secretary, Annie Butler.
“Occupational violence and aggression in the workplace is causing significant physical and psychological harm and trauma which is impacting health workers and their capacity to deliver care.”
Aged care facilities accounted for 12.8 percent of all health worker injuries, while almost half (49.5 percent) occurred in public areas of hospitals and clinics.
Overall, there were 7,416 injury hospitalisations among healthcare workers over the 10 years to 2024-25, including 819 in 2024-25—a rate of about one in 2,000 workers.
While assault has been a significant concern for peak health bodies and unions, the sector has also been affected by the behaviour of its staff.
They were also arrested and charged with criminal offences for using a carriage service to menace, harass, and threaten violence.
