Over 4,000 nurses assaulted in the workplace since January 2023

The figures for the period Jan 2023 to Feb 2024, provided to the INMO, include incidents of verbal, physical, and sexual assault. Picture: iStock

More than 4,000 nurses and midwives were assaulted in their workplace over a 13-month period – an average of just over 10 per day.

The figures for the period Jan 2023 to Feb 2024, provided to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), include incidents of verbal, physical, and sexual assault reported by nurses and midwives to the HSE's National Incident Management System (NIMS).

The worst month in terms of these incidents was March 2023 when 338 were reported. In May, a further 312 incidents were reported, while 306 assaults were also recorded during the month of December.

According to the INMO, the month with the fewest number of assaults was September, when 213 assaults on nurses and midwives were reported to the HSE. This, however, still amounted to an average of seven assaults per day.

INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said the total of 4,016 assaults reported over the 13-month period was also likely to be “a conservative figure as many nurses and midwives do not report these incidents, not indeed do their employers”.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said the HSE, as an employer, needed to “radically shift its focus when it comes to the safety of its employees”.

“Our members, the majority of whom are women, need to know that they can go about very difficult jobs of treating patients in a safe manner without having to worry about their own safety,” she said.

“Too many of our members have had career-ending or career-changing incidents happen to them in the line of their work through no fault of their own.

“Far too often it is the overcrowded conditions that they are working in that is to blame.” Ms Ní Sheaghdha said it was “imperative” for each of the country’s hospitals to reflect on their own individual security arrangements and “what they are doing to keep nurses, midwives and other frontline healthcare workers safe while at work”.

Earlier this month, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) announced the establishment of the Health and Social Care Advisory Committee (HSCAC), made up of representatives of from the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), the HSE, the Voluntary Hospital Forum, Nursing Homes Ireland, Social Care Ireland, the State Claims Agency, IBEC, HIQA, the INMO, the Mental Health Commission, and trade unions.

According to the HSA, the body will identify examples of best practice in occupational health and safety in the sector and support the HSA in “the development and promotion of guidance on specific occupational health and safety topics relevant to the sector”.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said her organisation had long called for the establishment of such a committee. She welcomed the positive response to it thus far.

“Our expectations are high and we will work with the HSA to ensure it [the HSCAC] has the same transformative impact on healthcare worker safety as it has had in the construction and farming sectors,” she added.

It comes as there were 506 patients on trolleys in hospitals across the country on Monday.

University Hospital Limerick was the hospital worst affected, with 53 people on trolleys at its emergency department and 70 patients waiting for a bed on other wards.