Revealed: The Sydney hospitals where one in five patients don’t feel safe

Detailed summary

A nurse at Concord Hospital allegedly had her wrist broken by a patient last week, a month after a patient was allegedly set on fire at Prince of Wales.

One patient in five feels unsafe in Blacktown or St Vincent’s emergency departments, government data has revealed, with almost one in 10 emergency patients not feeling safe statewide.

Of 23,621 NSW patients asked whether they felt threatened by other patients or visitors in the emergency department, 1601– about 9 per cent – answered “yes, definitely” or “yes, to some extent”, according to the Bureau of Health Information’s 2024-25 Emergency Department Patient Survey.

At Royal Prince Alfred and Westmead, nearly one in five (19 per cent) felt threatened, as were 18 per at Liverpool and Auburn EDs. Around the state, women were less likely to feel safe than men; 11 per cent answered “yes” compared to 8 per cent of male respondents. Patients aged 18-34 were the most likely to report feeling threatened, at 14 per cent.

Registered nurse and union delegate Colette Duff said she encountered violence every shift in a busy Sydney emergency department, particularly from elderly patients with dementia or affected by drugs.

“I’ve been punched a number of times, I’ve been scratched, people try to bite me, swearing, threatening to hurt me,” the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association councillor said. At times, “you absolutely feel frightened”.

Instances of healthcare workers being assaulted and hospitalised have more than doubled in the past decade, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data found. Assault accounts for 15.4 per cent of healthcare worker injuries, against 3.8 per cent in the general population.

Last week, a nurse in Concord Hospital’s emergency department had her wrist broken after she and a doctor were allegedly assaulted by a patient. Last month, a patient at Prince of Wales Hospital doused three patients in petrol before setting one on fire.

The NSW government committed last week to an extra 129 full-time equivalent security staff for the state’s emergency departments, in response to the safety taskforce set up with nurses, doctors and allied health unions.

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