27 August 2014 Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5331 Aser García Rada. Madrid Workers in the Spanish national health service will be granted similar public status to that of police officers under new rules designed to protect them from attacks by patients. New legislation that will consider medical professionals as public authorities while exercising their job will be introduced by the end of this year, said José Antonio Becerra, coordinator of the assaults observatory (Observatorio de Agresiones) at the organisation of Spanish medical colleges (Organización Médica Colegial). The measure will grant all of Spain’s 600000 health workers similar status to that of police forces and state security bodies and will introduce tougher penalties against patients or their relatives who attack medical professionals. The announcement came after the legislation was agreed at the national health system’s interterritorial council, a periodic meeting that the ministry of health, social services and equality holds with regional health authorities. A final date for implementation is now due to be scheduled with the minister of justice, who has been involved in developing the legislation. A spokeswoman from Spain’s ministry of health told The BMJ, “Violations derived from an assault such as injuries or threats could qualify as a crime of offence against authority in all cases, which does not currently occur. The penalties will be more severe, which will be a deterrent to the behaviour of suspected or potential aggressors.” The Spanish penal code already states that assaults on doctors will be considered attacks against authority and therefore a crime, but in practice its implementation varies between regions and is at the judge’s discretion. The new law will also include all other public servants, such as nurses or administrative and management staff, but workers in the private sector will remain excluded. The law will also provide health workers with the presumption of truthfulness, meaning that their statements will prevail in cases involving one person’s word against another’s in a justice court. Currently, Spain’s autonomous communities use different criteria when classifying and dating incidents of aggression, and medical colleges have their own separate database. The Organización Médica Colegial launched its assaults observatory after the death of María Eugenia Moreno, a 34 year old resident doctor who was shot and killed by a patient at a health centre in Moratalla, Murcia, on 11 March 2009. The observatory, which collects data on the 225000 doctors represented by all 52 medical colleges in Spain, recorded 354 attacks in 2013—15% less than the 416 recorded in 2012—and 18% of the attacks in 2013 involved injuries. Becerra told The BMJ that 1714 assaults had been reported in the past four years, although many more—particularly involving verbal abuse—may be unreported. Nine in 10 incidents occurred in public hospitals. At the June meeting, health authorities presented the first official report on assaults against all healthcare staff. This showed that more than 30000 health professionals were attacked in primary care centres from 2008 to 2012, of which 72% were women. Eight in 10 cases involved verbal abuse such as insults, harassment, or attempted coercion, and 20% involved physical aggression. Doctors were the most frequently attacked worker group, followed by nurses.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:43:11 +0000
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