A nurse has highlighted the dangers frontline healthcare workers face, sharing a video of him fighting off an assault from a patient in a Brisbane hospital.
Daniel Nelson, a registered nurse with the Australian Army, was forced to take instant action to protect himself after a patient attempted to attack him in the entrance of the emergency department at a hospital in Brisbane in October 2024.
The patient threw items at Nelson before trying to strike him in the face. Daniel Nelson
CCTV footage shared by Nelson shows the patient seeming to walk out of the hospital, before quickly turning and trying to throw items at him.
Nelson blocks this effort, and then thwarts the patient has he attempts to strike the nurse in the face.
Nelson puts the patient into a headlock to disarm him, before throwing him to the ground with a jiu-jitsu style move, and restrains the man on the ground while calling for help.
After a few moments, hospital security converge on the scene to assist Nelson.
Sharing the footage on a post on LinkedIn, Nelson said: “This is a side of healthcare that many people never see.
Nelson was forced to use his jiu-jitsu training to defend himself. Daniel Nelson
“The patient had been verbally abusing staff, spitting on the floor, and behaving aggressively.
“After being asked to leave, I escorted him outside.
“Somewhere along the way, he decided assaulting the nurse was a good idea,” Nelson added, saying the patient had shown signs of intoxication.
Nelson said he had more than a decade of training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which enabled him to act quickly and defend himself, but he said his close call highlighted the threats faced by frontline healthcare workers, and that on other occasions, there can be a different result.
“What if he had targeted a nurse half my size? A new graduate? A student? Someone without the ability or confidence to physically defend themselves?” he said, saying it was “unacceptable” for the threat of workplace assault to be part of the job for healthcare workers and security personnel at hospitals.
“Nurses, doctors, paramedics, security staff and all healthcare professionals are there to care for people, often on the worst days of their lives… Assaults on healthcare workers are not ’just part of the job.”
Nelson said the man plead guilty to common assault and was fined $450.
A survey of more than 1200 Queensland Health workers, conducted by the Australian Workers Union this year, found 69 per cent of staff have either been assaulted or witnessed an assault in the workplace.
The survey also found 70 per cent of workers believe there are not enough security officers at their facility, or that there are none at all.
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union (QNMU) submitted an amendment bill in June to call on the Queensland Government to undertake a review into instances of violence against healthcare workers, and to provide more guidance to employees and employers on how they can best protect themselves.
QNMU secretary Sarah Beaman said the incident was deeply concerning.
“Nurses and midwives should not have to defend themselves from violent behaviour in the workplace,” she told nine.com.au.
“While nurses and midwives receive occupational violence prevention training, we expect employers to do more to ensure when behaviour does escalate there are de-escalation measures in place that do not rely on nurses and midwives having to use reasonable force to protect themselves from harm.
“Occupational violence is at alarming levels, and this is not new news.”
The Queensland Minister for Health, Tim Nicholls, has been contacted for comment.