In 5 years, from 2016 to 2020, there were 12 thousand accidents at work for health personnel linked to violence, aggression and threats, with an average of about 2,500 a year.
The survey comes from Inail, in view of the first National Day of education and prevention against violence against health and social-health workers, which will be celebrated every 12 March.
The most affected are nurses and health workers.
Doctors, on the other hand, represent 5% of the total number of cases but this figure, observes the president of the National Federation of Medical Orders (Fnomceo) Filippo Anelli, "must be analyzed and is certainly underestimated".
46% of these accidents, explains Inail, are concentrated in the 'health care' sector, which includes hospitals, nursing homes, institutes,
university clinics and polyclinics;
28% was found in 'residential social assistance services' (retirement homes, shelters), while the remaining 26% falls within the 'non-residential social assistance' sector.
Regarding gender, almost three quarters of the injured are women.
Nurses and professional educators - normally engaged in educational and rehabilitation services with minors, drug addicts, alcoholics, prisoners, the disabled, psychiatric patients and the elderly in health or socio-educational structures - are the most affected categories, with more than one third of all cases.
More distant, with 5% of cases of assault in health care, is precisely the category of doctors, which does not however include general health care workers and freelancers in the Inail insurance obligation.
The figure, says Anelli, is however "certainly underestimated, both because it refers only to the type of more serious attacks and because it relates only to hospital doctors.
Precisely for this reason, "we have requested and obtained that in the current law against violence against health care workers, official prosecution is foreseen".
This, commented Anelli, "will allow us to have more reliable data with respect to the real dimension of the phenomenon".
The National Day was established by law n.113 of 14 August 2020 'Safety provisions for health and socio-health professions exercising their functions'.
The law provides for the increase of penalties up to 16 years in prison, administrative sanctions of up to 5 thousand euros, the provision of official prosecution without the need for a complaint by the offended person.
And again: an ad Hoc Observatory and the institution, in fact,
