Going to work one morning only to never return is confronting to contemplate.
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It's a scenario at the top of the workplace safety pyramid, but one that still needs to be ever-present in trying to keep the risks at bay.
The issue is one well-ventilated in all manner of ways - from compulsory workplace safety sessions through to national safety campaigns.
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We have all seen the advertisements on TV, where a dad works out the door and the next scene is the grieving family shocked by his sudden death.
Certain workplaces are often singled out - the risks they come with working on a building site or in the myriad of dangers that exist on farms.
The procession of these advertisements should never be allowed to stop, nor should legislative requirements detailing workplace obligations.
The consequences of dropping the ball, as such, on this issue are all too plain and catastrophic.
But there also needs to be a widening of perceptions on workplace safety because sometimes the inherent risks are not as obvious, or are not ventilated as often as should be the case.
These matters come to the fore when considering the disturbing revelation at a Border health forum of a reported jump in the number of assaults by disoriented hospital patients on nurses.
And where that becomes even more concerning, nursing union spokesman Geoff Hudson says, is a prediction the situation will get worse if serious attention is not paid to what causes such incidents.
He tells his story with genuine insight, having had a patient hold a pair scissors to his throat.
At the crux of the issue - one that sits within the context of growing number of patients with dementia and other conditions that impact their behaviour - is, he says, declining nurse-patient ratios.
It makes sense that the more qualified people you have on a shift, the better able those nurses will be at identifying risks earlier and, with the support of their colleagues and managers, putting in place and enacting on strategies that remove or greatly lessen the risk of physical harm.
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