15 Mar 2017 Cobram Courier, Cobram VIC (General News) Cobram District Health will benefit from additional safety measures to reduce and prevent violence through the second round of the Victorian Governments Health Service Violence Prevention Fund. The facility will receive $22 500 for the renovation and installation of a new nurses station reception desk for acute ward and urgent care centre. Cobram District Health chief executive officer David Gullick said news of the funding was welcomed by the hospital staff. Our nurses station is open 24 hours a day and is the place where people go for late-night care, so they need to feel safe, Mr Gullick said. There has been increasing violence in that sort of area of hospitals in all parts of the country, so we need our staff to feel as safe as possible at all times. Mr Gullick said he was hopeful the works would be completed in the next month. There is probably only a weeks worth of work involved so we would hope to have it done as soon as possible, he said. The funding is part of the $20 million Health Service Violence Prevention Fund. State Member for Northern Victoria Jaclyn Symes said hospitals and mental health services across the state would see significant safety and security upgrades, including additional CCTV, more personal duress devices and alarms, and new infrastructure such as security doors, windows and restricted access areas. These projects build on the success of the first round of funding and continue to deliver on the governments election promise to reduce violence at hospitals and mental health services by improving facilities and making them safer for staff, patients and visitors, Ms Symes said. Northern Victoria has an incredibly dedicated health and mental health workforce who deserve to feel safe and protected in the important work that they do. Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.