The Accident and Emergency area of Enniskillen’s South West Acute Hospital. RMGFH45
IN RESPONSE to an increase in physical attacks at the South West Acute Hospital in recent months staff, including doctors, have been offered special ‘conflict resolution training’.
The Fermanagh Herald understands there have been a number of ‘serious incidents’ within the past six months at the hospital, with one employee, who wished to remain anonymous detailing one incident where staff came across more than two men in the multi-storey car park who were armed with sledgehammers and damaged a car.
Thankfully. in this instance, the staff members did not confront the men and instead returned to the hospital and raised the alarm.
Enniskillen court has also heard a long litany of cases in the past year of staff members being attacked and abused by patients.
In November a 22-year-old Enniskillen man was sentenced to three months in prison for being abusive to staff in an incident dating back to September 28, 2015.
In total health service workers in the Western Trust Area were physically or verbally abused over 1,267 times between April 1 2014 to March 31, 2015 , with 78 of these taking place at the South West Acute Hospital.
Despite reports of a number of incidents in recent months it is believed there are no plans to introduce security to relieve already under pressure staff.
Jill Weir, the secretary of the Fermanagh and Omagh branch of Unison said there were concerns amongst staff, with security at present handled by the portering staff.
“There have been some very serious security incidents recently within the South West Acute Hospital, especially involving A & E.”
“My concern is that there is a state of the art CCTV in this PSI hospital, but security in the hospital is actually covered by our portering staff, but in a way that they make sure the place is secure, but they are not hands on with anybody. If there’s a serious incident the police have to be called and the thing is if it happens on a Saturday night the police could be busy already.”
According to Mrs Weir following a recent management meeting a recommendation was put in place by the Western Trust to offer MAPA (Management of Actual or Potential Aggression) training. This training uses management and intervention techniques to cope with escalating behaviour in a professional and safe manner and is said to help people deal with aggression in a calm way that keeps everyone safe. This training has been offered to any staff who could have potential involvement in a situation.
When asked about the possibility of security personnel being introduced like at other hospitals in the North Ms Weir said there were financial constraints.
“There’s no money for it, that’s what I’m told. The way it was put to me ‘there’s not enough serious incidents’ for them to warrant the cost of security.”
Local Independent councillor and mental health practitioner Raymond Farrell said the reliance on porters to use de-escalation skills was “not always the best” option. He called on the Western Trust to explore the option of security at the South West Acute Hospital.
“There are indicators that aggression towards staff is increasing as well as potential disruption and vandalism within departments and that is very concerning.”
He continued:
“I think it is something that is worth exploring and indeed a number of staff would consider it very important that we do consider these options, because staff have very challenging and difficult jobs as it is and any form of aggression is unacceptable.”
At the time of going to press the Western Trust had not had sufficient time to respond to enquires about the possibility of employing security staff and MAPA training being offered to staff.
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