Ice likely to cause hospital violence

MORE than 90 per cent of drug-fuelled violence on hospital workers is due to ice, startling new research has revealed.

The unprecedented study by the Royal Melbourne Hospital has shown the hidden extent of methamphetamine violence on doctors and nurses working in its emergency department.

Drugs were consumed in 40 per cent of attacks and threatening incidents where security guards had to be called to intervene.

And of those, 92 per cent were specifically on the drug ice. The numbers were obtained by taking a saliva swab test from the perpetrators.

Horrifying footage from inside RMH’s emergency department shows rampaging patients throwing chairs; hitting staff with computer monitors; punching nurses and attacking them on the ground; or spitting in their faces.

While escalating levels of hospital violence have received increased attention in recent years, RMH executive director of strategy Prof George Braitberg said even emergency department workers were shocked to discover how many attacks were fuelled by drugs.

“They are huge figures,” Prof Braitberg said.

“It not only effects the patients themselves, but the patients around them, the staff, the equipment. Having chairs thrown through glass barriers and all those sorts of things becomes very disruptive but, over the years, it has become business as usual.”

In an unprecedented move, doctors alarmed at the situation confronting Melbourne’s emergency departments sought ethical approval to collect saliva samples without needing to gain consent from violent patients, including those who were unconscious or had been chemically or physically restrained.

Over seven months RMH emergency department staff drug tested the most aggressive “code grey” cases — the code used to gain security support for a violent incident.

Of the 229 samples taken between August 2016 and March 2017, 85 were positive for methamphetamine.