MEDICAL RENAISSANCE
GROUP
Australian Doctor Magazine 14 Jan
2005
Australian Dr Poll shows 1 in 12 GPs
are physically attacked.
Drugs and alcohol is a
common factor but also another reason is GPs refusing to give patients scripts
they demand.
With verbal abuse and property damage
more than half of GPs and three quarters practice staff have experienced
violence in the work place
One third of GPs admitted violence
had affected their willingness to practice after hours and more had concerns
about home visits
Michael
Australian Doctor Magazine SEP
2004
BEING threatened by a patient with a butcher’s
knife should be enough to convince anyone that violence against GPs is a serious
problem, but Dr Malcolm Ireland needs more proof.
Dr Ireland, a GP from Maitland in NSW, who
also works part time for the Hunter Urban Division of General Practice, has been
appointed to head up a University of Newcastle study into the extent of violence
against GPs.
“I have
personally had a patient pull a butcher’s knife on me in my surgery,” Dr Ireland
said.
“My
receptionist buzzed me and said that there was a patient in the waiting room
with a knife. When I approached him he produced it and threatened me with
it.”
Dr Ireland said the study would
examine whether violence against GPs was widespread, or whether his experience
was an isolated one. It would also look at the impact of violence on the
availability of after-hours care by GPs.
There was a perception that many GPs did not provide
after-hours services in their practice because of a fear of violence, Dr Ireland
said.
The study, which
is being funded by the NHMRC, will involve intense focus group interviews with
GPs from the Hornsby, Canterbury, Maitland and Newcastle districts in
NSW.
A questionnaire
will also be sent out to GPs nationally early next year.
“We [GPs] can all think of situations where
we have felt uncomfortable,” Dr Ireland said.
“I think it [violence against GPs] is
more prevalent out there than we think, because we just don’t talk about
it.”
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