Healthcare workers in Ibiza and Formentera receive training in managing agitated or aggressive patients.

As reported by the Health Area in a statement on Thursday, the Ibiza and Formentera Health Area received 64 reports of assaults against healthcare personnel this year. Physicians accounted for the highest number of incidents (23 cases), followed by nurses (18 reports). Additionally, administrative assistants filed 15 reports, orderlies filed 3, and emergency technicians reported 3 incidents.

During the first nine months of 2022, the NIRA reporting system logged these 64 assaults compared to 37 reported in 2021 (representing a 72.9% increase). Of these incidents, 81 percent were verbal (52 cases) and 19 percent involved physical violence (12 cases).

At Emergency Staff, we recognize that progress has been made regarding reactive measures—actions taken after an assault occurs—as well as certain containment steps like hiring security personnel in healthcare centers. However, there is a clear deficit in driving preventive measures: those essential actions that prevent assaults from happening in the first place. Key among these are educating the public through awareness campaigns and, above all, training healthcare professionals to identify warning signs preceding an assault, de-escalate hostile situations, and escape aggressive scenarios using intuitive self-defense techniques. To be effective, training must have a strong healthcare-oriented focus that builds on workers’ inherent capabilities while accounting for specific duties across different hospital units. Launching a comprehensive training plan of this nature is far more logical and coherent than ordering generic self-defense courses that prove useless when crisis strikes.

Thanks to growing awareness among healthcare institutions, an increasing number of medical workers are equipped with proper tools to handle potential aggressive situations—including Can Misses Hospital in Ibiza, which has trained its staff for years through our Agitated/Aggressive Patient Management program. Assaults against healthcare personnel, as with any other group, represent a profound social failure. As a society, assaulting those dedicated to protecting our health is unacceptable.