The Arnau de Vilanova hospital and the CAPs of the Lleida plain registered 167 aggressions against healthcare personnel last year, an average of almost one every two days. The volume of cases is concentrated in a context of healthcare pressure and has forced the reinforcement of protection measures in various healthcare facilities in the city.
The tension appears mainly at the entry point of the system. While 61% of aggressions in Catalunya occur in Primary Care, in the Lleida health region, 37 have already been counted so far this year, four of them physical, compared to the 103 registered in all of 2025 by the Observatory of Situations of Violence against Healthcare Professionals.
The CUAP of Prat de la Riba locked laboratories and reinforced counters
At the CUAP of Prat de la Riba, the management has introduced physical changes in the center after complaints from administrative staff. The facility now has new counters with partitions, more separation, and access through locked doors.
Sílvia Solís, director of the CUAP of Prat de la Riba, describes a repeated pattern in the daily life of the center.
"There are people who burst into consultations when it's not their turn and loiter in the hallways, so we have had to lock spaces like the laboratories" - Sílvia Solís, director of the CUAP of Prat de la Riba
The doctor links many of the aggressions to demands for sick leave and expectations of immediate attention. She also points out that most of the incidents in this facility are concentrated on weekends, when healthcare activity increases and more episodes related to alcohol or other drug intoxications occur.
Furthermore, the CUAP only has a security guard in common areas during the afternoon and night shifts. Solís maintains that they recognize some problematic individuals when they enter the center, but they cannot deny them access as it is an Emergency service, and adds that there are users who wait to come when there is no guard.
The Arnau de Vilanova added 64 aggressions in one year and already has 28 more
At the Arnau de Vilanova hospital, 64 aggressions were registered last year, 49 verbal and 15 physical. Ten of those physical aggressions were committed by psychiatry patients.
During this year, the hospital already has 28 cases, six physical and 22 verbal. In 17 of them, the perpetrators were non-habitual patients.
Susana Bonet, occupational risk technician at the Arnau de Vilanova hospital, explains that the ICS offers six-hour courses on verbal containment and four-hour courses on physical containment. She also recalls that there are action protocols, although the decision to report rests with the affected worker.
The preventive response combines training and security elements. All computers in the centers incorporate a panic button to internally alert staff, while prevention also includes cameras and guards in the Emergency services, as already happened in the reinforcement of health security.
Albert Clarisó, Lleida representative of the observatory, details that support for victims includes accompaniment to the mutual insurance company, psychological help, and legal advice. The Generalitat, moreover, estimates that habitual aggressors account for one in four incidents in Catalonia as a whole, a profile that also appears in aggression in Primary Care.
Solís doubts, in any case, the deterrent capacity of some of these measures and states that neither the cameras nor the proximity to the Guardia Urbana police station guarantee by themselves that incidents will decrease. At Arnau de Vilanova, 10 of the 15 physical aggressions registered last year were committed by psychiatry patients.