A WorkCover Authority of NSW inspection of Gulgong hospital revealed “serious risk” to its employees from violent attacks and physical aggression while identifying a long list of problems with the ageing building.
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Patients and others had made threats against staff and security breaches were commonplace, states a WorkCover document released by the Greater Western Area Health Service.
The cost of dealing with the “violence in the workplace” breaches comes to about $1,021,000, as compared with $1,055,000 to rectify “potential exposure” to asbestos.
When announcing the August 29 closure of the hospital, Greater Western Area Health Service highlighted the latter problem.
A WorkCover inspection in March identified “safety notices for improvement, with asbestos the issue of serious safety concern”, it said.
The Greater Western statement released on August 10 did not mention the risk to the health and safety of hospital workers from inadequate infrastructure and equipment.
The receipt of improvement notices from WorkCover had prompted the Greater Western to cost work required at the hospital.
It included upgrading duress alarms (involving rewiring of the hospital), replacing all windows with shatter-proof glass and installing security mesh screens.
All doors needed to be “lockable and alarmed” and a well-lit and CTV-monitored car park needed to be built outside the staff room for after-hours use.
A risk management report of the Greater Western also detailed reconfiguration of hospital rooms for security reasons and training of staff in “aggression minimisation”.
This week a spokesperson for the Greater Western said the total cost of responding to the WorkCover improvement notices was $3,567,500.
The spokesperson said it was “not practical to spend millions of dollars to upgrade a facility which is not configured to support modern health care”.
The needs of Gulgong hospital range from a new morgue to better paths and a replacement for its covered ambulance entrance area currently at “risk of collapsing”.
