More than eight in 10 Queensland nurses, midwives, and carers experienced workplace violence in the past year, prompting the QNMU to demand urgent government funding for proven prevention programs.
Violence against Queensland nurses, midwives, and carers has reached “crisis point”, with new union research showing more than eight in 10 frontline health workers experienced occupational violence in the past year.
The findings have prompted fresh calls for the Queensland government to urgently fund prevention measures.
Preliminary findings from the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union’s Grow Your Voice survey of around 8000 members found 82% of respondents had experienced workplace violence in the previous 12 months.
The union warned the escalating problem was threatening staff safety, workforce retention, and patient care.
QNMU secretary Sarah Beaman said the findings showed frontline clinicians were increasingly being subjected to violence at work and that governments needed to shift from reacting to incidents to preventing them.
“The QNMU’s Grow Your Voice survey of around 8000 members states very clearly that nurses, midwives, and carers are under attack,” Ms Beaman said.
She said the survey findings aligned with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s 2026 report on work-related injury hospitalisations.
The report, released last month, found healthcare and social assistance workers experience some of the highest rates of workplace injuries in Australia, particularly women.
The AIHW report also found assault was the second leading cause of injury hospitalisations among healthcare workers, compared with seventh across the broader Australian workforce.
“Our predominantly female, frontline workforce is facing real obstacles and, in many cases, frightening barriers to feeling safe at work,” Ms Beaman said.
“This must change.”
The union has called on the Queensland government to provide dedicated funding to strengthen occupational violence prevention across the public health system, arguing no additional funding or new initiatives were included in the 2026-27 State Budget despite growing evidence of the problem.
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Among the measures being sought is an expansion of the Ambassador Program, which trains specialist clinicians in de-escalation strategies and provides support to healthcare teams managing aggressive behaviour.
Ms Beaman said Queensland already had evidence-based, clinician-led programs capable of reducing violence but they required sustained investment to be implemented more broadly.
The QNMU has also advocated for greater emphasis on corporate prevention strategies, including behaviour management plans, improved customer care processes, and other system-wide measures designed to identify and manage risks before violence occurs.
Rather than focusing solely on responding after an assault, the health system needed to adopt a prevention-first approach, Ms Beaman said.
She said reducing occupational violence would deliver benefits beyond staff safety, including lower rates of sick leave, workers’ compensation claims and long-term physical and psychological injury, while improving retention of experienced clinicians.
The union also warned against any move to weaken Queensland’s workplace health and safety laws, arguing employers had a legal obligation to provide safe workplaces.
Failure to address the growing problem would make it harder to recruit and retain nurses, midwives, and carers and could ultimately affect Queenslanders’ access to free, high-quality public healthcare, Ms Beaman said.