Nurses at a small hospital in regional New South Wales have written to management about being attacked with forks, pens, landline telephones and sprayed with urine, only to be told they have the same staffing levels as similar facilities.
In a letter to the Western NSW Local Health District, the Rylstone branch of the Nurses and Midwives' Association says that "members believe that the workplace is now dangerously unsafe".
The letter, seen by the ABC, outlines an incident from April where a male patient allegedly "struck a staff member in the face and threw his urinal bottle, full of urine, over the same staff member".
The letter goes on to describe how the same man "removed the phone from the bedside and wrapped the cord around his hand, enabling him to swing the phone as a weapon".
Later during the same afternoon in April, the man is said to have "attacked a staff member by stabbing her with a fork" before he "used a pen from his wheelie walker to attempt to again stab anyone who came near him".
The Multipurpose Service at Rylstone was upgraded in 2018 and provides a range of services to the local community including acute medical care and aged care.
The letter called for an extra staff member be hired to work the night shift and for the blind spots in the camera system to be fixed.
NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association spokeswoman Tracey Coyte said that low staffing levels across the state were putting workers at risk and impacting their ability to respond to dangerous incidents.
"Rylstone is not alone, they need more staff but so do all of our facilities across the state."
In a statement, the Western NSW Local Health District said the Rylstone facility had a staffing level consistent with other facilities in the western region.
"Like all services, staff availability has been impacted at Rylstone Multipurpose Service by current events including the COVID-19 pandemic, furloughing of staff and ongoing recruitment challenges," a spokesperson said.
Ms Coyte said if Rylstone was staffed at a normal level then it was "obviously not working" and the system needed to be reviewed.
"To be told that your service there at Rylstone is staffed the same way that we staff all small facilities is really brushing it under the carpet … and ignoring [staff] concerns," she said.
