NHS SENDS A WARNING OVER ABUSE AT HOSPITAL
Boss insists staff will be protected
James Hartness was drunk and swore at staff in the hospital’s A&E unit NHS bosses have said abuse of staff at Perth Royal Infirmary will not be tolerated.
The warning came after a Perth man caused mayhem in PRI’s accident and emergency unit, unleashing a torrent of abuse at two staff nurses and demanding that one of them phone him a taxi.
Perth Sheriff Court was told that 46-year-old James Hartness had been asked to stay within one of the bays at the hospital.
“But he kept coming out and swearing,” explained depute fiscal Carol Whyte.
Swearing continually, he called one of the nurses a “b **** ” and shouted at another that she “better phone him a taxi.”
After the police were called, he branded one of them “a grass.”
When cautioned and charged, he told officers: “Yes, I swear. That was it.
“I have this attitude where swearing just comes out.”
He was kept in custody until he was sober and then freed.
Hartness, of Tulloch Terrace, narrowly escaped a jail sentence and instead was ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work within the next four months.
He will also be supervised by a social worker for a year.
He admitted that he behaved in a threatening or abusive manner at the hospital in March