Safety shouldn’t be a secret in our hospitals

May 30, 2026 — 5:00am

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For most of us, the hospital is a place of last resort. It is also a place of vulnerability, where we depend on the care and attention of others. In such a setting, a sense of safety is vital.

It has long been the case that some of those who turn up to hospitals in need of treatment themselves pose a threat to others, whether that is due to mental illness, drug addiction or other circumstances. For the sake of staff and other patients, every hospital has to have protocols and the means to exclude such cases and protect its operations.

But The Age’s recent reporting on Victorian hospitals and their use of “not welcome lists” to ensure safety paints a troubling picture.

Paramedics have reported to the Victorian Ambulance Union (VAU), which represents them, that hospitals are triggering “code grey” or “code black” calls when they unload a listed patient from an ambulance, triggering internal procedures for security to attend and remove the person.

As paramedics and ambulance workers have made clear, the issue is not that such procedures exist; it is that the lists are currently not........

© The Age