WorkSafe Victoria has charged Melbourne Health following the death of a patient at The Royal Melbourne Hospital — a case that raises significant questions about the safety obligations of public healthcare providers towards patients in acute mental health settings.
The patient, who had been admitted to the hospital for an emergency mental health assessment in June 2024, took their own life while in care. Under section 23(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Melbourne Health faces one charge for failing to ensure persons other than employees were not exposed to health and safety risks. A second charge has been laid under section 26(1) of the OHS Act for failing to ensure that a workplace under its management and control was safe and without risks to health. The matter is listed for a filing hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 2 June 2026.
The charges follow a similar pattern of enforcement that has emerged in Victoria’s hospital sector. WorkSafe has previously charged St Vincent’s Hospital following the 2024 death of a patient who took their own life after being admitted for psychiatric care in Fitzroy. That matter — which involved the death of a young Aboriginal woman — is also before the courts. These cases signal WorkSafe’s preparedness to pursue healthcare institutions under the OHS Act’s duty to non-employees when patients are harmed in circumstances that may have been preventable.
The section 23 duty applied to both cases is broad and well-established in Victorian law. It requires PCBUs to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, that persons who are not employees — including patients, visitors, and members of the public — are not exposed to risks arising from the conduct of the undertaking. In a healthcare setting, this includes the physical safety of the environment: management of ligature risks, supervision of patients assessed as being at risk, and the adequacy of policies and procedures for acute mental health presentations.
Melbourne Health has not publicly commented on the charges. The case will be closely watched by healthcare providers across Victoria and nationally, given the implications for how WHS law applies in complex clinical environments where patient safety intersects with duty of care obligations.
WorkSafe Victoria has included healthcare and social assistance as a continuing enforcement priority, noting persistently high injury rates in the sector. Healthcare employers are reminded that their obligations under the OHS Act include the physical safety of the environments in which care is delivered, not only the risks faced by their workforce.
