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		LETTERS TO EDITOR
		Aggressions to sanitary professionals María Alemany1 1Supervisora Unidad, Hospital Universitario Son Dureta. Palma de Mallorca, Spain Mail delivery: Hospital Universitario Son Dureta. C/ Andrea Doria, 55 EA3C-MIF, 07014 Palma de Mallorca, España Manuscript accepted by 25.2.2008 Tesela [Rev Tesela] 2008; 3
How to cite this document
Alemany, María. Agressions to sanitary professionals. Tesela [Rev Tesela] 2008; 3. In <https://www.index-f.com/tesela/ts3/ts6741e.php> Consulted by

Dear Ms. Editor: Continuously we are receiving messages that declare us the indignation and condemnation of determined collective social that feel affected by a specific problem. Our complex and modernized society, is requiring of more order and justice without giving nothing in exchange, without participating. The individualism is carrying us to the intolerance, arriving at a point in which we remain indifferent before the discomfort of the others.

The sanitary professionals are denouncing their discomfort, are being victims of aggressions on the part of some users of the sanitary system as well as of his relatives. This aggressiveness includes since being directed with an offensive language, passing for the threats, the insults, the physical aggressions (blows, sexual aggressions.) until coming to reach the homicide.

According to the studies of the OIT (International Organization of the Work) the 25% of the aggressions at work are at the sanitary environment.¹ The NIOSH (National Institute for the Security and Employment Health of E.E.U.U.) indicate that the collective most exposed in the hospitals and in the health centres are the nurses, by being more hours in contact with the patients and by being the ones that establish limitations and so much restrictions to patients and their families.² Doctors are the ones that should communicate the incomes, diagnostic and high to the patients and family.

The public centres in determined epochs saturated,³ the long waits for to be attended, do not help to create a better environment for the user neither for the worker, we can say that to greater delay of attention there will be more probability of conflict. The overload of work of the sanitary professionals along with the false expectations of the users is basically the generators of violence. If we add that the current user goes against the principle of authority and he is utilizing as answer the violence like middle to obtain something, we can venture us to think that with greater information, the expectations of the patients could be more adequate.

In the different autonomous regions they are developing plans of prevention to avoid the aggressions,⁴ they cover since enlarge the investment in matter of security with measures of security and protection of structural type, passing for systems of detection, notification and accusation of aggression, increases of staff, formation in self-defence and formation in verbal and physical contention. Increase of guards and security cameras, or either for restricting the step in determined zones, visits number restriction, until arriving at economic or penal sanctions.

It would be able to say that not any universal strategy exists to prevent the violence, is a matter of enlarge the security in the centres, patient and family they be found more protected. Information should be given more to the user and to form the professionals.

In some States this type of actions against the medical team they are qualified as crime of attack against public official⁵ by virtue of the article 550 of the penal code, what would involve to a hardening of the grieves, only will not apply an economic sanction, but would be able to arrive hardly of deprivation of liberty. The compromise to a greater implication, on the part of the Administration and the understand that there should be a penal accompaniment in the resolution of the cases.

Up to now very few sentences in favour of the professional they are known and the few that have themselves resolved ultimately, they are it for a crime of lacks implying the economic payment of the sanction. Often we read articles on aggressions to the personnel of the health, of all types, whether verbal or physical.

We should ask us on the psychic consequences that can have an or several, or even repeated aggressions on a worker that has as only purpose to attend a person with a problem of health. These hostile situations can favour a low self-esteem, distrust toward the others, stress, or an unfavourable environment of work.

The only form to confront this type of situations is that the plans of prevention designed be a reality and they be carry out. That is to say, that be troops and that in matter of education, the respect be integrated and the tolerance toward the others as an indispensable individual value.

References

1. EFE. Unos 3500 sanitarios denunciaron agresiones los tres últimos años. Abril 2007. Madrid. Disponible en:
<https://actualidad.terra.es/sociedad/articulo/ccaa_sanitarios_denunciaron_agresiones_ultimos_1527724.htm> [Consultado el 15 de febrero de 2008].
2 NIOSH. Violence: Ocupational Hazards in Hospitals. Cincinati, OH:U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Publication April 2007. Disponible en: <https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/violence/> [Consultado el 15 de febrero de 2008].
3. ELMUNDO. La violencia explota en los centros sanitarios: Atacados por los pacientes. Marzo 2007. 2970. Disponible en:
<https://www.belt.es/noticiasmdb/home2_noticias.asp?id=2970> [Consultado el 21 de febrero de 2008].
4. Servicio Andaluz de Salud. Plan de prevención y atención de agresiones para los profesionales del sistema sanitario público de Andalucía. Disponible en:
<https://www.juntadeandalucia.es/servicioandaluzdesalud> [Consultado el 21 de febrero de 2008].
5. CSI-CSIF. Continúan aumentando de forma alarmante las agresiones a sanitarios. Mayo 2007. 2521. Disponible en: <https://www.csi-csif.es/madrid> [Consultado el 21 de febrero de 2008].