"Aggression kills" - silent protest by health care workers

In recent days, there has been no shortage of evidence that aggression in medical entities, aggression by patients or their relatives, happens more often than we would like to assume. Participants in the march, by the way, said explicitly that this is a common experience. That even if they themselves have been spared it (yet), the fingers of both hands would not be enough if they wanted to name colleagues who have encountered aggression personally. Not only verbal, although it happens most often. Often, moreover, it takes the form of criminal threats, when a person - doctor, nurse, rescuer - begins to wonder if it is "only" words, or words that will be followed by an attack.

The Health Minister respected the bitterness and grief of medical workers - alongside doctors, paramedics, diagnosticians, pharmacists, nurses, representatives of other medical and non-medical professions walked in silence - and quickly came out to the protesters to assure them that the government was taking the problem of health worker safety with all seriousness. She announced that the government would swiftly adopt and refer to the Diet an amendment to the criminal law (raising the maximum and minimum penalties for assaulting a medical worker in the course of his or her duties) and absolutely enforce the protections to which medical professionals are entitled in the course of their work, protections equivalent to public officials such as firefighters and police officers. A new category of act threatened with a hefty financial penalty - disruption of public order in a medical facility - is to be quickly introduced into the misdemeanor code. This could prove to be a game changer that will cool the viciousness of people venting their sense of frustration on medical personnel, whatever the reasons.

Doctors said openly at the beginning of the march that one of the sources of patients' aggression is the dysfunctions of the system and the fact that the patient - or his relatives - is often logistically left alone with his problem, feels lost and attacks those who are closest, namely the medical staff. However, an even more serious problem, which has also been highlighted, is the declining mental health of Poles, with aggression becoming one of the symptoms of diseases that are rolling over both individuals and society. A drastic example is not only the events in Krakow, but also last week's attack on a UW employee by a student at the university. One fatality, a severely injured security guard - another tragedy that could perhaps have been avoided if witnesses had reached for their phones not to record videos, take photos or spread information among themselves about a strangely behaving young man, but to call 112. Talk, it seems, is needed not only about aggression, but also about indifference and a sense of responsibility.