Invitation to Congress

Prof. Dr. Seval AKGÜN, MD, PhDs 
Chair 
TURKEY
Prof. Dr. Rashid Bin Khalfan Al-Abri
MD, FRCS, MBA, 
Co - Chair
Sultanate of Oman
Dear participants,
 
Violence and threat of violence in healthcare associations highly influence both the burnout and unsatisfaction of the working personnel, and the structure of the organization. Violence towards healthcare professionals is a psychosocially growing problem that is not new. International Labor Organization (ILO–2002) defines workplace violence and violences relation to violence clearly as; “ harassment and threats that they face in relation to their occupational situations that risk their safety, health and well being either openly or veiled, including personnels comings and goings from work ” and by doing this emphasizes the rights that workers and healthcare providers have to work in a safe environment. Situations considered as violence in healthcare associations are acts that form a risk for the healthcare provider such as, threats (verbal or physical), physical attacks and harassment that come from patients, their relatives or any other individual. Violence either in the workplace or related to their occupation can lead to; death (workplace homicide), physical injury, loss of tissue/organs and not being able to look after patients either briefly or permanently. We can see that even though healthcare providers are personnels that work directly to reduce violence they also are victims of it. Researches state that the form of violence in healthcare environments can show certain differences compared to other working environments and that violence is most commonly seen in the health industry. The risk of healthcare providers facing violence is 16 times more possible than the service sectors. According to NIOSH even though every single sector of health providers face violence in physiatrics, emergency services, waiting rooms and elder treatment units are more likely to recur and end in results such as non-serious or serious injuries, not being able to work briefly or permanently, psychological trauma and or death.
All healthcare providers, especially doctors and nurses are in a highly risky environments in the sense of facing violence. Violence cases that are seen in the health industry form almost 25% of the violence faced in working environments. According to certain studies violence faced by healthcare providers can lead to low moral, disability, shift changes becoming more frequent, shifting their occupational choices, burnout and loss of trust. With the death numbers going up in 2003, violence towards healthcare providers started to increase, however we can see that violence has increased more than ever in the last 4-5 years. Especially in the pandemic every individual around the globe were trapped in their own homes for days, months on end, and were able to keep themselves safe by not going to their work environments while healthcare providers worked for everyones safety and selflessly risked themselves and their health. As a result they faced Covid-19, long working hours, psychological issues, fatigue, occupational burnout, stigma and physical and psychological violence. It should be clear that “ If Healthcare professionals  are  burnout, their places  could not be filled.”.
 
English