Being a nurse comes along with a lot of risks and sacrifices. It not an easy job as you might as well be losing your own life as you take care the lives of others. A sad news just came in lately that in Northern Ireland, there has been increase in the number of attacks in their Mental Health Nurses.

Last Thursday, there has been an attack on a male nurse at Holywell psychiatric hospital outside Antrim. It is a 200 bed-capacity mental health insitution covering acute admission, dementia assessment, intensive care, continuing care and rehabilitation.The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has reported that there is a significant increase in the number of attacks on staff working in mental health facility. The attacks obviously came from the patients and this increase in number has been alarming.

Garrett Martin, of the RCN in Northern Ireland said, “The latest figures that we have from the Zero Tolerance group is that there are significant increases in the numbers (of attacks) particularly on nurses and particularly in the mental health arena.”

He also added that patients that were classified as high risk should be handled with not only trained nurses but their number should be increased. The classification of patients should be tighten this time. A “vigorously enforced” zero tolerance policy towards violence to staff has been pressed by the Northern Health Trust.

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