In Navarra, an average of ten physical assaults per month take place on toilets, a disgusting statistic that continues to rise after 2022 in which the assaults were introduced. According to data provided by the Department of Health, there have been a total of 207 attacks on Osasunabidia professionals in the first four months of 2023, of which 169 were verbal (81.6%) and 38 were physical (18.4%). Which produces an alarming average of about 10 physical assaults per month.
Two of these physical assaults have occurred in recent weeks: one at the Rochapia health center – where a patient struck an administrative partition with an iron bar and threatened a worker – and the other in the hospital’s emergency room, where a man stabbed a Punched the doctor and treated him.
The 207 attacks reported between January and April are slightly higher than the same period in 2022 (202), a year that was characterized by a 20% increase in these violent incidents.
Director of Rochapia Health Center after attack on a patient: “Every week you have to call the police for an attack”
Notably, last year a total of 588 defecation were reported – while in 2021 there were 492 – of which 128 were physical, with an average of 10 attacks per month. However, the significant increase in assaults – which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic – was explained by an increase in verbal assaults, as reported by the department.
Health prevention
The health department postulates that the increase in attacks is also due to an increase in notifications promoted by Osasunbidia to avoid “underreporting” and bring all these conditions to the fore which the department “absolutely” rejects.
Six months in prison for assaulting a doctor at the Cintruénigo health center
Furthermore, to end these attacks, health is promoting primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. Primary focus on avoiding attacks on staff through training courses and existing security buttons on computers in primary care and mental health networks.
Secondary is aggression aimed at causing minimal potential harm (self-protection course) and states that harm has been documented and associated with professional casualty. And the tertiary would be one that aims to restore the damage done to professionals, with special attention to be paid in particularly severe cases.
