As a mental health nurse, I work closely with patients presenting with varying levels of mental health crises. As a mental health nurse for

the entirety of my employment, I have been on the receiving end of violence, physical assaults and mistreatment.

I have had patients hit, kick, punch, scratch and spit on me, whilst I’ve also been in the firing line of some absolutely abysmal verbal abuse.

What has also become apparent to me is not only a surge in mental health presentations to the emergency department, but also an obvious clinical deterioration in the mental health status of those presenting.

The current surge and increase in acuity of mental health presentations is largely due to the insufficiencies of our health system, both within an inpatient and community-based setting.

Currently the services and resources along with the staff employed in them are completely at breaking point. We are burnt out, over worked, undervalued and under paid for our skill level, experience, and patience. But it keeps falling on deaf ears.

The recent increase in assaults on healthcare workers is just another symptom of a broken system that is set up on systemic bias and failure.

Teaghanne Sarina, RN