Enough is Enough. Practice manager Nikkii Murgana and Doctor Bernd Becker have called on abusive patients to be more patient.
By Rebecca Fraser
SWEARING and abusive patients could soon drive doctors out of Casey.
Berwick doctor Bernd Becker said he was sick and tired of dealing with rude and threatening patients and has called on the medical profession to band together and take action against these people.
Dr Becker has been a GP for the past 21 years and is a partner at both the Parkhill Medical Centre in Berwick and Amberly Healthcare in Narre Warren South.
He travels 45 minutes to work each day and said if patient behaviour did not improve, doctors would be reluctant to work in Casey and other outer metropolitan areas.
Dr Becker said reception staff often fell victim to threatening verbal sprays and doctors had even been forced to lock themselves in their consulting rooms when patients lashed out.
Last year, Dr Becker said he had to respond to a complaint that a patient had waited half an hour to see him.
He has also heard of another local patient who sent her GP an invoice for the lost time she had spent in the waiting room.
Dr Becker said he was sick of patients reporting GPs to the Medical Board for ‘utter nonsense’.
In turn, he said doctors needed an avenue where they could lodge complaints about rude and threatening patients.
The Berwick Clinic has already sent letters to certain patients asking them not to return and on other occasions the police and security staff have been called.
Dr Becker said patients had become increasingly violent and impatient in recent years and the stabbing death of a Narre Warren doctor last month highlighted the issues GPs and medical staff were facing.
Just five days before mother of three Khulod Maarouf was killed at a Noble Park medical centre, Dr Becker said staff at the Narre Warren South clinic had held a meeting to discuss patient violence.
He said he feared that the tragic stabbing would not be the last, unless security measures and patient behaviour improved.
Dr Becker’s concern led him to write a letter to the Editor of a metropolitan paper and since then he has received letters and calls of support from other medical professionals experiencing a similar plight.
“We just want patients to be more compassionate and treat us like we treat them.
“Emergencies do come through and they need to take priority. We do not keep people waiting on purpose,” he said.
“If the area gets a reputation as having abusive and violent patients then doctors won’t want to work here. The population will suffer and people will wait even longer.”
Dr Becker and Berwick practice manager Nikkii Murgana said they were sponsoring a doctor from England to come over to work because they could not attract any Melbourne doctors.
Dr Becker said patients also became abusive if he did not give them the medical certificate they wanted or he would not write them a prescription for a drug of addiction.
Ms Murgana stressed that the clinic did not keep drugs of addiction.
