NURSES working at a Canberra mental health unit have reported more than 100 physical assaults by patients in six months, spurring calls for an urgent inquiry from the ACT government.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) ACT is calling on the government to better protect nurses working at the Dhulwa Mental Health Unit in Symonston after they first raised concerns about the operation of the facility back in 2018.

According to the ANMF, several staff have sustained significant injuries including a broken arm, broken nose and broken fingers.

One nurse described working at the facility like being “sent into the killing fields.”

ANMF ACT branch secretary Matthew Daniel said “appaling HR practices” and “toxic relationships” have created an environment where occupational violence has become “business as usual” at the facility. 

“Dhulwa nurses report being directed not to disengage or withdraw from unsafe situations involving violent and aggressive patients and instructions to allow patients to vandalise public property,” said Mr Daniel.

“It’s not surprising then that staff turnover is high at Dhulwa, and senior staff brought into address problems have reportedly left soon after being assaulted themselves.”

Calls for an inquiry also follow the death of a woman at the facility in September last year.

Mr Daniel said the culture at the unit pits patient rights against the rights of nurses to work in a safe environment and is having detrimental effects the mental health of staff and the relationships with their families.

“In evidence provided to the ACT Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Health and Community Wellbeing on 21 February 2022, the government demonstrated a poor understanding of the safety systems and policies purportedly in place to keep nurses safe at Dhulwa,” he said.

“Nurses and midwives across the public health system are fed-up with the ACT government for not responding to their safety and workload concerns, but the situation at Dhulwa represents a particularly serious example of the government’s failure to respond where there is an imminent risk of a catastrophic event.”