According to a response from Luxembourg’s health minister to a parliamentary question, from the second quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2017, hospital workers suffered on average 31.4 incidents of violence per quarter. The number of incidents rose from the period of 2010 to 2014 when it was 20.7 per quarter.

Minister Lydia Mutsch pointed out that these incidents were often also involuntary, inflicted by patients with dementia, for example, who suffered uncontrollable violent outbursts.

“Attacks by someone outside of this group, which are included, remain very rare (2.4 reports per year)”, the minister wrote.

Security services in hospitals, which responded to 66% of violence incidents, were called out to intervene in the city’s A&E department 479 times in 2016. Of that number, 109 calls were for verbal or physically violent patients, including 87 who were under the influence of drugs or alcohol and 61 suffering psychiatric disorders.

Mutsch adds that the services most exposed to violence was A&E and psychiatric departments.

Since 2016, a pilot project was introduced in four Luxembourg hospital services to reduce the number of attacks on hospital staff. The project aims to record all violent incidents taking place within the hospital and ensure victims receive psychological support if requested. Staff are also trained in conflict resolution skills to help avoid an escalation of violence in their dealing with patients.