Socrates found this article in an archived version of "The Lamp"which is the official Journal of the NSW Nurses Association.
Addressing risks for community-based mental health nurses
Lamp, The, July, 2009 by Kevin O’Neill
I was delighted to see that Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital has considered the risks experienced by their community-based mental health nurse equal to, or sometimes even
greater than, those faced by their in-patient unit colleagues. I think expenditure of $9,000
to kit out home visiting staff with the ‘panic button phones’ (p8, The Lamp, May issue) shows that at least St Vincent’s is taking their risk management seriously.
About three years ago I worked with a supplier of duress alarms to mental health in-patient units in Sydney South West AHS (SSWAHS) to develop a mobile duress unit similar to the principle now adopted by the St Vincent’s Mental Health Services. The device the manufacturer came up with consisted of a portable, car-based unit containing a GPS unit and a mobile phone that acted as a transmitter.
The mental health worker carried the standard duress alarm commonly used within in-patient units. When activated, it sent a duress signal to the transmitter located in the work vehicle, which in turn sent the signal as a recorded message to a receiving mobile phone and computer at the worker’s home base. The GPS allowed the placement of the work vehicle to be identified and sent to the receiving mobile phone along with the emergency message.
The beauty of this system was the alarm could be raised silently by the push of a button, and if the staff member was knocked down, or the unit was pulled from the worker’s belt or clothing, it would be activated automatically.
To test the unit in our rural area, I spent the better part of a Sunday travelling all over the Southern Highlands activating the unit for an assessment of its effectiveness. Wherever there was a signal from a mobile phone tower, the GPS report and an emergency message was received.
When I asked for funding for a trial project of the duress alarm it was refused by SSWAHS. I was informed that the Area Health Service (Ms Jan Whalan) opposed the trial on the basis that if it worked, all community-based nurses would want them. It seems that Melbourne, at least, values
their responsibility to provide a safe work environment with something more practical than just words in a policy.
Kevin O’Neill, RN, Wingecarribee Community Health
