Mental healthcare sites in Gauteng to start sedating violent patients

The Gauteng Department of Health has opted to begin sedating mental health patients and bolster security to mitigate ongoing attacks on personnel at 10 healthcare sites.

This decision was a result of the department suffering 41 attacks on staff by mental healthcare patients between January 2020 and November 2021.

A spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Health’s MEC, Kwara Kekana, said these attacks varied; however, commonly occurred around nurses, doctors and security guards being either assaulted or bitten by mental healthcare patients.

“As part of efforts to reduce attacks on hospital staff by mental healthcare patients in public hospitals, the department provides continuous training to its staff on how to manage aggressive patients.”

She said in one incident a patient at a clinic in Sedibeng Health District pulled a lightbulb from the ceiling and attacked staff.

The attacks happened in 10 healthcare facilities in the province. They were Far East Rand Hospital (12), Leratong hospital (7), Pretoria West Hospital (6), Tembisa Tertiary hospital (5), Jubilee hospital (4), Odi hospital (3), Tara H Moross Psychiatric hospital (2), Lenasia South district hospital and Levai Mbatha Community Healthcare centre, with one incident each.

“Various measures that have been put in place to reduce attacks on staff include sedating mental patients at casualty on arrival at a facility where necessary.”

Kekana said mental healthcare patients were also admitted to 72-hour observation units immediately, while doctors and nurses would also accompany each other when attending to mental healthcare patients.

“In addition, the department has placed security personnel at casualty departments to assist with psychiatric patients.”

She said the department had further reported all the cases as injuries on duty and referred them to employee assistance programmes for further management.