A doctor and nurse in the emergency room of Hadera’s Hillel Yaffe Medical Center suffered a physical attack on Saturday night and filed a complaint with the Israel Police. A Hadera resident in his 30s came to the emergency room after suffering a dog bite. He was given a preliminary examination and asked to wait for an orthopedist to arrive. The man started to shout and curse on his cellphone, without any consideration for the medical staff and other patients.
The nurse on duty asked him to lower his tone of voice, triggering a violent reaction by the man, who cursed and spat at her. A doctor who was near the nurse tried to defend his colleague, but the man slapped him powerfully on his face. The hospital’s security guard overcame the attacker as the man continued to act wildly. He was removed from the emergency room as the police arrived and took the complaint.
The deputy director of the state hospital, Dr. Michael Dudkevich, said that fortunately, the nurse an doctor were not physically injured, but they were shocked, anxious and suffered emotional trauma. He added that the number of verbal and physical attacks on staffers is on the rise. He called on the authorities to make sure that the attacker is quickly punished so that it will be understood that medical staffers must not be subject to any kind of violence.