This is interesting, and more than a little sad:
PATIENTS who abuse staff at a Greater Manchester hospital will become the first in the country to face an £80 fine in a crackdown on anti-social behaviour.
Police will patrol the accident and emergency unit at the Royal Bolton Hospital for three months in a bid to prevent aggressive and threatening behaviour.
They will issue penalty notices for disorder inside the hospital and arrest any patients or relatives who physically attack staff.
The scheme follows shocking new figures which show staff across Greater Manchester are physically attacked on average five times a day – suffering 2,000 assaults last year.
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Abuse
But Bolton medics say this is the tip of the iceberg and they also face a barrage of verbal abuse and antisocial behaviour.
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“Nobody should have to put up with that kind of behaviour in their workplace and it also causes distress for other patients and visitors in the department.”
We have the same thing in the US, horribly entitled, horrible people who know that they can’t be removed from the ED until their MSE is completed, and behave in a manner that would get them thrown out of any other place. (I’m not talking about patients with uncompensated psychiatric problems here, nor those experiencing delirium).
It’s not all patients, a tiny few, but they make the job less enjoyable (and occasionally more dangerous) for us all.
We have rent-a-cops in A&E, but they’re just “come along with me” peddlers in stab vests.
Bah.
Came to you from Barb, blogrolled!
I wish we could do this. A week ago, I took care of a baby that was nearly a month old in which the parents have verbally abused the staff, broken all the rules, and stolen many things over the period of several weeks. On my shift, we went through the usual, and then I finally had security called for them stealing. Of course, that didn’t go over well with the parents (at one point, the father stated that he took a pack of diapers because his bill was paying for it… his bill…right…) and then the mom started screaming that I went through her bag and threatening to call the hospital, etc etc. She was, at the time, being led out of the room by security. They’ve since continued their antics and we simply call security every day. I don’t think it should get that far. They steal things – they abuse the staff – they should be banned…..let alone fined! We had another parent today tell the director of neonatology that the one nurse better get out of the room or he was going to hurt her. Then proceeded to write a 2 page letter of complaint to our manager. The nurse was quite upset.
WE should not have to work under these conditions. I’m sick of it. It’s angering. And I’m getting so tired of dealing with this day in and day out lately! We work in a NICU. I am there to save the lives of infants – NOT to deal with this. It would be unheard of and unacceptable anywhere else – so why do we have to put up with it?
Beyond annoyed…
Carrie
There is no special degree needed to become parents is there? Too bad. Poor kid.