Surgeon attack prompts safety calls

MELBOURNE, Australia — Doctors and medical professionals in the Australian state of Victoria have called on the state government to urgently address the issue of healthworker safety following another serious attack at a Melbourne hospital.

A man was charged on Friday with intentionally causing serious injury after punching a surgeon at Box Hill Hospital on Tuesday night, a blow which has left the surgeon in a coma and fighting for his life.

It is the latest in a series of similar incidents, with health services’ annual reports last year showing that a Victorian health worker was bitten, spat at, punched, abused or threatenedalmost every hour in 2016.

There were 8,627 reports of occupational violence in Victoria’s public hospitals last year, and of those 1,166 resulted in staff injury or illness.

The spate of attacks on hospital workers in Victoria has medical groups calling for the immediate upgrade of security measures at hospitals.

Michael Wong, a neurosurgeon who nearly died after being stabbed 14 times while at work at a hospital in 2014, spoke out after this latest attack on Patrick P ritz wald Ste gm an non Tuesday.

It is understood PritzwaldStegmann, who was leaving his shift and heading home, became concerned about people smoking near the entry to the hospital and asked them to move. A verbal altercation then took place which led to one of the men assaulting Pritzwald-Stegmann.

“This is a ticking time bomb. Nearly the same thing happened to me three years ago has happened again,” Wong said.

The Victorian government has said it will make security improvements a “priority”.