Nurse treated for broken wrist after alleged assault in Sydney hospital
Bruce Rowling is a security guard at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital and says he has been injured on the job "many a time".
The worst of those injuries was his thumb pulled out of its socket, ripping his tendons.
Mr Rowling says he's been injured at work many times. (ABC News)
He said he was restraining a male patient who had been told by a doctor he was moving to another hospital.
"He didn't like that, he just went a bit crazy, started swinging and punching the doctor,"
Mr Rowling said.
Before the patient could be sedated, Mr Rowling held him down.
"In the process of me holding him, my thumb was pulled out of its socket," he said.
Mr Rowling says his thumb was pulled out of its socket. (ABC News)
Mr Rowling said in a big hospital with about 650 beds, there were usually four security staff working at a time.
He said a general rule was one security guard for every 100 people, but that number was not achievable once visitors and hospital staff were taken into account.
Mr Rowling says usually four security staff worked in a hospital of hundreds. (ABC News: Nick Dole)
To reduce gaps in security ratios in New South Wales hospitals, the state government has committed to recruiting 129 extra full-time security staff.
Health Minister Ryan Park said they would be deployed at 27 hospitals across the state.
"The ability for them to handle challenging patients, challenging visitors, challenging people who are coming into our hospitals is far easier when they feel supporter by additional staff," he said.
Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes said the additional staff would help prevent violent incidents before they happened.
"We will now be in a position to prevent issues occurring as opposed to responding to them, which is the most important thing," he said.
Mr Hayes described a hospital as a "microcosm of the community".
"And we're seeing the community now under pressure, we're seeing the community also becoming more anxious," he said.
Extra security staff will be hired across 27 hospitals. (ABC News)
Nurses injured in alleged assault
The announcement coincided with two nurses at Concord Hospital being allegedly assaulted by a female patient on Tuesday.
NSW Police said a 44-year-old patient was restrained and sedated, after allegedly assaulting two women, aged 34 and 57.
Officers were alerted three hours later.
Both nurses required medical treatment, one for a broken wrist, according to Mr Park.
"Not a minor injury, a serious enough injury that they required care," he said.
Police said the patient remained in hospital and the incident was being investigated.
Bigger hospitals with high-volume emergency departments see the most violent incidents, including Westmead Hospital, Prince of Wales Hospital and Royal North Shore Hospital.
Ryan Park says a nurse suffered a serious enough injury they required care. (ABC News: Nick Dole)
‘Drug of choice’ increasing violence
Mr Park said changes in drug use had contributed to an increase in violence in emergency departments.
"Back 20 years ago, the drug of choice, heroin at the time, had a different effect on the body than what the types of drugs that we see now, particularly methamphetamine," he said.
Mr Park said people using methamphetamines presenting at hospitals could bring some "pretty frightening issues" for staff and security officers, requiring extra resources.
"We're working very closely with police about the way in which we interact with those patients when they come into our hospital settings," he said.
Calls for extra powers
Mr Rowling said ongoing underworld crime in Sydney had also been a concern for hospital security.
"They end up in hospital, you have their friends and relatives turning up and they don't always like each other," he said.
He said when police do not have capacity to watch patients in hospital, security guards "take up that slack".
"Everything you see out on the street happens in hospitals as well, but you have a thousand people in a big building,"
he said.
While security guards receive training, they do not have any "extra powers than the average citizen", Mr Rowling said.
"We can ask someone to leave if they're misbehaving problem is you can't do that to everyone who's a patient because they might be a critical patient," he said.
Mr Park said the government had "not made a decision" about increasing powers available to hospital security guards.
"Additional powers comes with other challenges, but we are working through those," he said.
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