Revelations from the ANMF that nurse managers are being trained to pat down and search patients for weapons are concerning, and the government should abandon this cost-cutting approach.
Ensuring safety for health staff and patients in hospitals is critical, but nurses should not have to perform these screening practices. It’s a job for security personnel – or police when necessary.
Making nurses engage in these practices will inevitably undermine the therapeutic relationship between them and their patients – a relationship that is critical for the best patient care. It’s also just another duty for overworked staff who are burning out.
Assistant Nurse Unit Managers, who will be responsible for doing new security checks, are already juggling far more than a full load of duties. They undertake clinical nursing duties as well as many managerial and patient flow duties.
The Minister for Health should be taking steps to reduce the load on staff, not moving to increase it with new inappropriate duties. The Rockliff government should listen to the ANMF and employ more nurses to backfill ANUM roles, and ensure security personnel – not nurses – are tasked with any patient screening that’s required.
