A nurse sacked over the disclosure of patient information has unloaded on her former bosses, accusing them of failing to take the safety of staff at a secure mental health unit seriously.
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Carol Sandland made that claim in the Fair Work Commission on Wednesday, when she described staff being taken hostage, attacked with a broken tray and threatened with hot coffee.
She also said patients were being allowed out on leave despite "escalating" behaviour, detailing an occasion on which she alleged one of them tried to strangle their driver.
"Everything I did was for safety at Dhulwa," Ms Sandland told the commission.
"I was becoming frustrated and anguished because management do not take safety at Dhulwa seriously.
"They minimise. It's just dreadful there."
Ms Sandland is suing Canberra Health Services in the commission, accusing the ACT government agency of unfairly dismissing her from work at the Dhulwa mental health unit in Symonston.
Katie Weir, counsel for Canberra Health Services, said on Tuesday the endorsed enrolled nurse's employment had been terminated over two categories of emails that contained confidential information.
The material included, among other things, the names of patients and details of their medication.
Ms Sandland accepted she had sent such material to Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation officials, as well as her personal email accounts.
On Wednesday, she told the commission there was "so much violence in the unit".
One example involved several staff being taken hostage, as Ms Sandland put it, by a patient who barricaded the door to his room while nurses were in there.
"No police were called," she said.
In another, she said a patient "who had murdered someone" threatened to throw hot coffee on a nurse.
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Ms Sandland said there was no plan in place to manage this man, who was "becoming quite violent".
She also described how, "for six days solid", a patient would break a tray into shards and "use it as a weapon" against nurses.
Many of her gripes revolved around a perceived lack of risk management, including assessments of patients who were allowed to go out on leave.
Ms Sandland detailed how she had assessed one patient as unfit for leave in October 2022, only for him to be allowed out the next day.
He absconded and had not been found by the time she was suspended in February this year.
The nurse also described a patient on leave "trying to strangle" the driver of a van as the vehicle went down Athllon Drive, a busy arterial road, at peak hour.
"I raised several concerns with management all the time, and then I had to go to the union because management wouldn't answer my concerns," Ms Sandland said.
"Only when I went to the union did I get an answer."
Ms Sandland, who was an ANMF delegate for workplace safety prior to her sacking, told the commission the union had "helped me greatly" with health and safety matters.
Ms Weir suggested to her that it had been possible to raise safety concerns with management and the union without sending emails that contained confidential information about patients.
"I want to say yes, but I'm not sure because I thought it was legal to send that," Ms Sandland replied.
The nurse admitted, however, in answer to a question posed by commissioner Sarah McKinnon, that she had never asked anyone whether it was appropriate to send such material.
The commissioner later heard from Cathie O'Neill, who was, until recently, the chief operating officer of Canberra Health Services.
Ms O'Neill, who still works for the organisation, was asked to address Ms Sandland's claim that it was "common practice" for Dhulwa nurses to send patient information to their personal email addresses.
Ms Sandland has told the commission an assistant director of nursing gave her permission to do so, saying staff sometimes had to catch up on work at home because they were too busy while on shift.
"I find that a little disturbing and if that had been reported to me, I would have wanted to understand that," Ms O'Neill told the commission on Wednesday.
"I just can't understand why any nurse would need to send material home to personal emails."
The hearing is said to resume in August.
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