Assaults on medical staff, regulation in 'Gazette'. Now you can proceed even without a complaint

From now on, the ex officio procedure is triggered in the case of personal injuries to healthcare professionals, whether minor, serious or very serious injuries, regardless of the victim's willingness to file a complaint. With assaults on healthcare professionals showing no signs of abating, the regulation published in the 'Official Gazette' comes into force, in the hope of curbing the phenomenon.

It was only last Saturday that news broke of an assault in the emergency room of the Foggia polyclinic involving a total of five injured medical staff. 'The regulation is a further step forward to protect colleagues who are victims of aggression and violence in the performance of their duties. And it is also a demonstration that our pressing action is beginning to bear concrete fruit,' commented the national secretary of Anaao Assomed, Pierino Di Silverio, following the publication of Legislative Decree No. 31 of 19 March 2024, which amends the Criminal Code on the subject of ex officio prosecution for the crime of personal injury and prosecution on complaint for the crime of assault.

'The intervention was necessary,' explains Di Silverio, 'to coordinate the changes already introduced to the procedural regime of the crime of injury in 2022 with the reform of the criminal trial, with the above-mentioned change, desired by Anaao, and made by the Legislator to the Criminal Code, by the so-called bill decree'. In particular about the tightening of penalties with regard to simple injuries for which the current penalty is imprisonment of two to five years. Now Anaao is calling for 'immediate organisational measures to complete the protection action'.

"Fine, but changes to the Criminal Code alone cannot be the solution to combat violence against operators. For the Fp CGIL, the priority is to protect staff and prevent both physical and verbal aggression. It is necessary to move forward on the road of prevention, establishing in all workplaces the Registry of missed accidents, applying what is provided for in Recommendation No. 8-2007 of the Ministry of Health and what is suggested by the monitoring activity carried out by the National Observatory on the safety of health and social-health professions (Onseps)," emphasises the Fp CGIL.

As the trade union recalls, there were no less than 16,000 incidents of aggression against health and social care staff in 2023 and 18,000 workers involved, according to the Observatory's 2023 report. "The profession most affected is nursing, followed by doctors and social and health workers. Two thirds of those attacked are women. The most risky environments are emergency rooms, inpatient areas, psychiatric services and outpatient clinics. The main aggressors are patients (69%) against 28% relatives. 68% of assaults are verbal, 26% physical and 6% against property'.