Staff at Grampians Health are being urged to put their own safety first as they continue to be exposed to "abhorrent and unacceptable" levels of violence in the workplace.
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New figures show Grampians Health has one of the highest rates of occupational violence reports of any hospital or health service in the state.
An average of more than four incidents per day were reported to hospital management in 2022-23, with 60 per cent of incidents occurring in Grampians Health's aged care communities, and 30 per cent in mental health services.
The Grampians Health Annual Report 2022-23, tabled in state parliament in November, revealed 1740 occupational violence incidents logged across GH sites and almost one in seven incidents resulted in staff injury, illness or a condition.
About 40 per cent of all reports related to people with a medical condition such as dementia, psychosis or delirium.
Comparing the number of reported incidents per 100 full time employees shows occupational violence rates at Grampians Health are more than double that of Barwon Health Geelong, and more than triple the rate at Bendigo Health.
Albury-Wodonga Health in the state's north-east had similar rates to Ballarat with both services recording more than 37 occupational violence incidents per 100 full time equivalent staff.
However the rate of violent incidents at Grampians Health is about half of what it was in 2017/18, when it peaked at 74.88 per 100 FTE.
The current rate at Grampians Health is many times higher than all of Melbourne's major hospitals, but most of those do not have the extensive aged care sector that Grampians Health offers as the largest provider of public aged care in the state.
"Our clinicians continue to be devoted to their work but I will not support our staff continuing to place themselves in harm's way through duty of care," said Grampians Health chief operating officer hospitals Ben Kelly.
"Those who are hurting them are obviously not going to be people we offer care to. Violence continues to occur and it's completely abhorrent and unacceptable."
Mr Kelly said violence inside the health services was also symptomatic of escalating violence in the community, citing an attack in the Ballarat CBD on a visiting Sri Lankan family and just last week, a family member of a patient was assaulted by a fellow patient when leaving the emergency department.
"Violence in the community is a continuing problem," Mr Kelly said.
He acknowledged emergency department wait times were a continuing source of frustration for some patients, which could lead to aggression and increased likelihood of violence.
"Sometimes they have to wait longer than we would like," he said. "Particularly at the moment when we have COVID impacting the hospital and ED, we are seeing increased wait times and wait times increase frustration and frustration increases aggression."
In the past 12 months a range of measures have been introduced to help reduce aggression and violence across Grampians Health including rollout of a new training program targeting the issue.
Security teams now wear body cameras "as a deterrent to undesirable behaviours" and protective vests have been added to the safety equipment available to responding staff.
"Occupational violence and aggression (OVA) strains the healthcare system, impacting health and wellbeing of staff. It may also deter potential healthcare workers from joining the profession," the annual report stated.
New processes to assist staff to identify causes of behaviour escalation have also been implemented and there is an emphasis on staff ensuring their own safety first.
"Grampians Health is striving to decrease instances of OVA, and community education is part of the process," the report said.
"We are setting standards of behaviour for those in the community who choose to act in a violent or aggressive way. We support staff to put their own safety first and step away if they are in harm's way. Our workforce are supported to report incidents both internally and externally, with information provided to them on what can be reported to the police, and how."
It is expected that the number of reports will continue to increase as staff are encouraged to report any incidents of violence and aggression.
"This is a positive for us as the more we report the more opportunity we have to customise care and prevent harm. We encourage a strong reporting culture so that plans can be made to reduce the likelihood of harm to staff."
A Victorian Health Department survey of almost 4000 healthcare workers across the state in 2022 found 70 per cent had experienced aggression, violence or abuse from patients, and 42 per cent reported high stress levels.
