Chad Bryan, Staff Reporter

Nurses Association of Jamaica president, Janet Farr, says measures will be put in place to address issues relating to mentally ill patients who come to the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).

A meeting consisting of Farr and senior medical officials at the hospital was called yesterday morning, following an incident involving a mentally ill patient, who attacked and choked a nurse at 2 a.m.

This subsequently sparked protest action outside the hospital as several nurses were fed up with the response of the hospital administration to the situation.

During the protest, a nurse revealed that less than six or eight weeks ago, a mentally ill patient attacked another nurse. During that incident, the woman had to be rescued by a medical doctor who was also kicked.

In another recent incident, a nurse assigned to the accident and emergency department of the Mandeville Regional Hospital was bitten by a patient.

"We decided that we are going to retrofit a ward that houses psychiatric patients. On that ward houses non-psychiatric patients but they are going to fix it in such a way in an area that is contained so that you can nurse them properly," said Farr.

Farr added that a psychiatric doctor will also be on duty to assess and possibly stabilisee the patient in the casualty area before that individual is admitted to the ward.

Additional, psychiatric aids and mentally ill nurses will be added and training for the aids in the use of restraints will also be done.

Security arrangements will also be made for nurses in the night.

On the recent spate of attacks on health care professionals, Farr said the issue was a societal issue and measures need to be taken to curtail these attacks.