In Karachi, high number of nurses report beatings

An alarmingly high number of nurses, 76% of 50 in a survey, have reported being beaten in emergency departments in four hospitals across Karachi.

About 44% of them reported some form of bodily injury. The culprits were relatives of patients 78.4% of the time. The nurses were mostly men.

These statistics emerged from the two private and two public sector hospitals in Karachi. The study took 20 nurses from Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, 10 each from Civil hospital, Liaquat National Hospital and Patel Hospital.

The findings were published as a paper on the prevalence of physical violence against nurses at emergency departments in tertiary-care hospitals in Karachi for the proceedings of the third international conference on ‘Violence in the Health Sector; linking local initiatives with global learning’ held October 24 to 26, 2012 in Vancouver, Canada. The authors were Rubina Parveen Ruby, Safrunisa Safrunisa, Rukhsana Perveen, Musarat Sadiq of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University, Larkana.

The majority of the participants were male (54%). Most of them were unmarried (60%), having working experience of less than five years (78%). “It is essential that the emergency departments should be secured and necessary security measures should also be taken for the safety of health care providers, especially nurses, who are more involved in taking care of patients,” concluded the researchers.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2012.