In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, violence against healthcare professionals increased by 58 percent worldwide, a report showed.
Verbal and physical attacks on physicians, nurses, and medical service workers occurred in all regions of the world. Emergency care and operating rooms were also exposed to violence.
The World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International Hospital Federation recently published the report, “Violence against Healthcare.”
The four international umbrella groups surveyed 129 medical groups from May 2021 to July 2021 to evaluate the perceptions of violence against healthcare during the pandemic.
The survey showed that 58 percent of the respondent groups said violence against healthcare workers or facilities increased after Covid-19. In medical scenes, at least one violence case occurred monthly.
All 129 medical groups said physicians were exposed to verbal aggression. In addition, physical assaults frequently occurred (82 percent), and nearly half of the medical organizations reported damage to facilities or loss of assets. Thirty-six percent of the respondents said they experienced obstruction of care, and 35 percent experienced discrimination due to fears of Covid-19 infection.
Such violent acts occur in emergency care most frequently. Forty-five percent of the participating groups said they experienced violence in emergency care after Covid-19. Mental health care was also frequently affected. Physicians and nurses had high exposure to violence in surgery or intensive care (42 percent). In addition, a third of the respondents said the violence occurred during medical transportation or baby delivery.
Aggressors were often patients and family members. In the study, 76 percent of the medical groups said they were involved in violence by family members accompanying the patients. Fifty-four percent said aggressors were people using the services, including patients.
The four international groups said in the report that Covid-19 worsened the violence against healthcare across the globe, and it was an important time to come up with practical solutions.
They emphasized that people needed to develop new legislation to protect healthcare providers and build a system to monitor violence cases and analyze data.
The report noted that Italy passed a new law to strengthen the punishment on people attacking health personnel in September 2020. The law extended the prison sentence from four to 16 years for people who cause serious or very serious injuries to health workers. Also, the law raised the administrative penalty by 10 folds from 500 euros to 5,000 euros.
The law also installed the “National Organization for Safety of Health Professionals” under the Ministry of Health. In addition, Italy designated March 12 as the National Day of Education and Prevention of Violence Against Health Personnel to raise awareness.
Taiwan also revised the Medical Care Act to enable punishment for insults against healthcare providers.