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    Don't punch emergency workers

    I'm not sure how I feel about this:

    Bill on emergency workers assaults passes first stage http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-po...ments-41637032

    I work in the NHS and we are surrounded by posters telling people not to get violent with staff. Equally as a punter I have been treated with unparalleled rudeness by NHS staff, from admin up to senior clinicians, when in pain and vulnerable or my loved ones were, and I can get why people with less emotional resilience would lash out. (Also a ridiculous quantity of violent actions perpetrated against NHS staff is by people with dementia, who are often physically manhandled to get them where they need to go and lash out because they think they are being attacked.)

    Despite all this, I'm loath to say that attacking an emergency workers is a worse crime than attacking anyone else. So if you slap a waitress it's one level of assault but if you slap a nurse you get twice the punishment. That seems to make crimes more serious depending on who the victims are which doesn't sit right with me.

    #2
    It's about the obligation to help, I think. If you are abusive to a waitress she can just plain refuse to serve you any more and have you thrown out. A nurse might theoretically be able to do that and the hospital might have posters up claiming this is what will happen, but in practical terms the threat can't often be followed through on as imagine the outcry if a patient was kicked out for being abusive and then got badly ill from lack of treatment. The nurse basically must continue to attempt to provide care, whatever is done to her. That obligation places emergency workers in a more vulnerable situation and therefore in need of greater protection.

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      #3
      I can understand the police being perceived as hate figures by some, but I've never grasped why people would assault firefighters or paramedics attending an emergency.

      In terms of the points raised by PT this bill does seem likely to open the door to punishing the vulnerable. "Don't be mentally ill, folks".

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        #4
        That's a good point, Janik. But a fair few people do get excluded from A&E and some people end up prohibited from attending.

        I guess it's also aimed at people throwing stones at firemen. But surely throwing stones at anyone is just as bad.

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          #5
          I think you have to consider who needs the service and for what reason. To go back to Janik's example, if a waitress gets accosted then the worst case scenario for anyone else is that their cheesecake might be a bit longer coming out. In the case of a paramedic being attacked though, there may be somebody on the scene who has had a heart attack or similar and could die without the paramedics full attention.
          Of course attacking the police is another matter. Tackle them and you could be shot, tazered multiple times until your heart gives out or suffocated or choked to death in custody.

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            #6
            Is the fear of attack affecting recruitment among medical workers?

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              #7
              The lack of qualified medical workers is more of a pressing concern*. And austerity keeping wages low etc etc

              And the Europeans will soon be going home thanks to Brexit. So if you don't like nonwhite people don't get old or I'll because all our new doctors and nurses are most likely to be Indian.

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                #8
                It's already an aggravating factor.

                Gesture politics, as I understand it.

                https://twitter.com/barristersecret/...73234090573824

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                  #9
                  I think that's what annoys me. Punish people stuck in a broken system rather than fixing the system.

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                    #10
                    Increasing the punishments for a crime that’s already a felony isn’t going to make them less frequent.

                    Increasing the certainty of being caught, however, might. That’s why the mob, historically, generally wouldn’t murder police or judges etc. Because the whole system would come down on them hard. Which, when you look at a situation like the Colombian cartels, etc, makes sense. The law can not survive if trying to enforce it puts one and one’s family in certain mortal danger.

                    Likewise with hate crimes, increasing the punishments for those is just a political stunt. I’ve never heard of any evidence that it makes them less likely. It may be worthwhile for local and national law enforcement to prioritize prosecuting and stopping those crimes, however, as it would improve trust between law enforcement and communities that have historically had bad relationships with law enforcement and it would get some nasty terrorists off the street.

                    Likewise, with attacking health and safety workers, it’s more important to reduce the likelihood not increase the punishments after the fact. I don’t think most people who attack nurses planned it or are doing it as part of organized crime, so deterrents aren’t going to do much. Better to pay for more/better police or security in the hospitals.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                      That's a good point, Janik. But a fair few people do get excluded from A&E and some people end up prohibited from attending.

                      I guess it's also aimed at people throwing stones at firemen. But surely throwing stones at anyone is just as bad.
                      That comes back to the same obligation thing, doesn't it? Many such incidents are planned and deliberate. Something is set alight, this is phoned in and the trap is baited. The firemen likely know they are being lured as targets to such incidents, but they can't not attend. Anecdotally this sort of thing is getting more common.

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