Festive rammy in A&E nets work and fine
A man and a woman have admitted causing chaos at Wishaw General Hospital’s A&E department two days before Christmas.
David Stubbs and Joanne Ellis appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court last week for sentencing having admitted their guilt at a previous hearing.
Stubbs and Ellis, aged 42 and 36 respectively, were convicted of behaving in a threatening manner in the A&E department on December 23 by shouting and swearing at two female staff nurses employed there as well as uttering threats of violence towards them, urinating on the floor and furniture within the waiting area and behaving in an aggressive manner.
Stubbs, of George Court, Burnbank, was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work within three months.
Ellis, of Burn Crescent, New Stevenston, was fined £150.
Earlier this year, the Wishaw Press reported on the alarming number of assaults and other forms of violent behaviour towards NHS staff at Wishaw General and across North Lanarkshire.
A Freedom of Information request from this newspaper found that from 2013 to 2015, there were a total of 1128 assaults on healthcare staff in hospitals and health centres in Wishaw, Shotts, Newmains, Cleland, Motherwell and Carluke.
Hard-working staff at Wishaw General were subjected to 930 attacks – 409 of those were committed in 2015.
The data showed that in 2015, over 160 Wishaw General staff were assaulted by patients they were trying to help, almost 100 patients used threatening and intimidating behaviour to hospital workers and 15 staff were the victims of violent behaviour. There were 72 incidents at Cleland Hospital, 71 at the Airbles Road Centre in Motherwell, while the health centres in Wishaw, Motherwell, Shotts, Newmains and Carluke noted 55 assaults between them.