The Government has agreed to a compensation scheme for psychiatric nurses assaulted at work. The scheme is expected to cover nurses who are out of work as a result of physical injuries only and it will not be retrospective.
Some 1,257 attacks on psychiatric nurses were reported in 2005 alone. Unions representing psychiatric nurses including the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) and Siptu have been campaigning for a compensation scheme for years.
After a threat of industrial action in 2002, then health minister Micheál Martin agreed to the establishment of a taskforce and promised in writing to implement its recommendations. The taskforce recommended that a compensation scheme be set up.
In July 2005, Mary Harney informed the Psychiatric Nurses Association she would get the State Claims Agency to consider a fixed redress scheme for nurses. There was little progress on the matter, however, until the PNA threatened industrial action again in September 2006.
When all sides met at the Labour Relations Commission in a bid to stop the industrial action, the State, according to the PNA, undertook to have a fixed redress scheme in place in the first quarter of this year.
Séamus Murphy, industrial relations officer with the PNA, said last night he was waiting to see the details of the insurance-based compensation scheme, but that one was being set up represented "a significant milestone".
The issue was discussed by Cabinet yesterday. Afterwards the Department of Health, in a statement, said the Government had agreed to authorise the Health Service Executive to seek personal injury insurance cover for nurses employed in the mental health services.
"This insurance would provide a fixed tariff of compensation for particular physical injuries resulting from assault by a patient," the statement said.