Anti-abuse campaign launched for healthcare workers

Monday, 8 September 2025 at 10:25

Six children of healthcare workers are fronting a new campaign aimed at stopping abusive behaviour towards Jersey's Health and Care workers.

There is more than one incident of abuse aimed at health workers every day.

A new campaign of posters and social media posts is using slogans such as 'My Mummy works here' to tackle aggression from patients.

Clinical co-ordinators have been appointed to train staff on how to recognise behaviour that has the potential to become problematic, and how to de-escalate a situation.

The campaign has been launched after figures revealed that staff have reported 452 incidents of verbal, physical, racial and sexual abuse so far this year.

Of the 452 incidents that have been reported in the first eight months of this year, more than half (238) were physical assaults.

Of these, nine were reports of sexual abuse, three were racial in nature and six involved the use of a weapon.

Meanwhile, 151 incidents of verbal abuse were recorded. Of these, ten were racially-motivated and five were sexual in content. A further four included the threat to use a weapon.

Brother and sister Malachi and Michealla, whose dad Rufaro is a Charge Nurse, star in the campaign.

Michaella, a year five pupil at Bel Royal School, said: “I’m proud of my father because his job involves helping people. I’m proud that he is deputy ward manager, this allows him to meet and help a lot of people.”

"I want to be very clear, HCJ treats any assault against a member of staff very seriously and we have a zero-tolerance approach to any attacks or harassment.”