Worksafe Victoria, the Department Of Health and stakeholders within Victoria’s healthcare sector have been working for 2 years to come up with a plan to reduce violence in our health sector. The Health Workers Union has been lobbying health administrators to make worksites safer for some time. We have attended the following Advisory groups to ensure that healthcare workers can be safe in their worksite:

• Work-Safe Health Services Stakeholder Working Group
• Work-Safe Advisory Group into Occupational Violence and Aggression within the health sector
• DHS Violence in Healthcare Taskforce
• Ministerial Roundtable discussion about Violence and aggression within the health sector

WORKSAFE has finally launched the “It’s never OK’ campaign. The campaign has been designed to help increase awareness of Violence against healthcare workers and to reduce the rate of verbal and physical assault that out healthcare workers have been subjected to.

Up to 95% of our healthcare workers have reported experiencing verbal or physical abuse during their working hours. Workers are regularly encountering violence and aggression. Research has shown that people under the influence of alcohol or drugs, those that suffer from a mental illness, patients and residents, visiting friends and family, even bystanders are cable of becoming aggressive or even violent and harming a health worker.

If there’s one message that the WORKSAFE campaign wants to get across to the community, it’s that “No matter the situation, aggression and violence against healthcare workers is never OK”.

Let's work together to stop Violence and Aggression against healthcare workers!

Please visit the Worksafe Website by clicking on the link below for more information. The website also offers a wide range of resources and tools to help prevent, manage and respond to occupational violence and aggression.

https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/campaigns/itsneverok