A nurse attacked on the job spoke about the impact on her life for a report published in the "New Zealand Medical Journal" on violence against healthcare workers. Photo / 123rf
A nurse attacked on the job spoke about the impact on her life for a report published in the "New Zealand Medical Journal" on violence against healthcare workers. Photo / 123rf
A nurse was attacked and held captive for 30 minutes before escaping from a patient threatening to kill her, but suffered facial fractures, burns to 30% of her body, stab wounds, bruising and nerve damage in what she described as “just the beginning of my trauma experience”.
The woman survivedthe “attempted murder” by a patient in respite care in the community only because of her fitness and “calming and restraint” skills, she told the authors of a New Zealand Medical Journal report on the impact of workplace violence on healthcare workers.
The report also aims to improve support for those attacked on the job.
A psychiatrist also told the report authors – registered nurse Wendy Strawbridge, Government chief victims’ advisor Ruth Money and psychiatrist Lillian Ng – about the unexpected long-term impact of being punched in the head while assessing a psychiatric patient in the intensive care unit of a women’s prison.
The experiences of the two workers and others who’ve also been victims of violence while working should never be normalised, Strawbridge, Money and Ng wrote.
“Yet it may be tolerated or expected by healthcare staff when working with disturbed or distressed patients.”
The nurse, whose attack took place in the top of the South Island in 2009, described its impact on her life as “catastrophic”, with trauma “far beyond the obvious physical injuries” and spreading to her husband, children, wider family and colleagues.
The nurse told the report's authors she felt “obliged to accept a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder to get more intensive psychological help”. Photo / 123rf
“It dismantled the very fabric of my life. It contributed to the breakdown of my 25-year marriage, the loss of my job and my home and, most painfully, my sense of self … I went from being a respected colleague and clinician to being defined as a victim.”
Conflicting protocols and practices between the health and justice ministries left her without clear rights or protections, and she was “obliged to accept a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder to get more intensive psychological help”.
This left her unable to access certain work options, income protection insurance or travel insurance, the woman told the report authors.
She didn’t feel listened to or supported by her managers after returning to work, worsening her “sense of not being heard, invisibility and disempowerment” during what was an already traumatic time as a victim going through the legal process.
Government chief victims’ advisor Ruth Money was one of three authors behind a report into workplace violence against healthcare workers.
The psychiatrist, who was attacked this decade in Auckland, told the report authors she’d reflected on her initial minimisation of the incident.
She later learned colleagues had also been attacked on the job, including by the same person who punched her.
Initially believing she was uninjured, the psychiatrist was later diagnosed with delayed concussion.
“In retrospect, I should have left the workplace immediately and sent my affected team members home.
”My questions: How do we model self-care? How many of my colleagues had sustained injuries and not sought care? Who took time off work to recover?
“How many consulted their general practitioner to complete an insurance claim? What environmental protections are in place to protect workers?”
The report authors recommended a nationwide approach to data on workplace violence against healthcare workers, and more research on the consequences of workplace violence.
They also called for strengthening health and safety legislation to clarify the responsibilities of individuals and organisations in identifying and managing risks, and monitoring violence.
