The background
The registered nurse (RN) was a government employee working at Cairns Base Hospital (Hospital) on the evening of 19 January 2014 when an intoxicated patient assaulted him. The RN had removed a blanket from the patient, the patient had stood up and thrown a punch at the RN, and the pair ended up scuffling on the ground. The RN ultimately managed to restrain the patient and forcibly remove him out of the emergency waiting room.
The RN claimed that he suffered physical and psychiatric injuries as a result of the incident and the alleged breach by the State in failing to protect him against the risk of an assault by a patient. The RN alleged that as a consequence of the assault and the later mismanagement by his superiors in the aftermath, he suffered a psychological injury of PTSD and physical injuries to his knee, shoulder and lower back. The Plaintiff claimed almost $800,000.00 in damages.
The findings
The State owed a non-delegable duty to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable risk of injury to the RN whilst performing his work duties, and it was clear that from Hospital policies that there was a foreseeable risk of psychological and physical harm due to violent patient behaviour.
The Court found that the State had breached its duty of care owed to the RN in failing to:
- provide staff with refresher training in aggressive behaviour management and failing to identify and train personnel to undertake timely post incident management; and
- provide, in a timely way, sufficient instruction to appropriate personnel to supervise post-incident response, conduct debriefing and providing counselling.
The Court was satisfied that the RN had suffered both physical and psychological injury from the incident, which was further aggravated by the sub-optimal treatment by Hospital staff. The Court awarded the RN $357,073.49 in damages.
The full decision Armstrong-Waters v State of Queensland [2020] QDC 66 can be read here.
