Coronavirus: Brad Hazzard hits back at people abusing nurses in public

The NSW Health Minister has called out the “un-Australian” behaviour of people verbally and physically abusing nurses in public.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has called out the “un-Australian” and “unacceptable” behaviour of people verbally and physically abusing nurses wearing scrubs in public.

“I am appalled,” he said in a press conference this morning.

“I think every right-minded member of our community would be appalled that our doctors and nurses are being targets for these people, who don't seem to get it.”

Nurses are being spat on, coughed at and refused service by the public, causing many hospitals to order staff to hide their profession and only wear uniforms at work, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph.

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NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has slammed nurse abusers.

Some nurses dressed like this in public have received verbal and physical abuse. Picture: Mark Cranitch

In a disturbing trend that has also occurred overseas, ill-informed people are taking out their fears of coronavirus on health workers, wrongly believing they are spreading the virus.

Mr Hazzard has slammed the behaviour, saying: “It's not Australian, it's not the way that Aussies behave.

“The rest of us are with our doctors and nurses, and our health staff, and I want all of us as a community to make it clear to that small minority that your behaviour is completely unacceptable, completely.”

Mr Hazzard reminded abusers that health staff would be the ones saving them in a time of need.

“That very same doctor, that very same nurse (who you abused) … might be actually putting a tube down your throat to keep you alive, you will wish you hadn't actually done what you did previously,” he said.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association reported disturbing cases of nurses being abused all over Sydney as they went about their everyday lives while wearing scrubs.

For example, in Penrith in western Sydney, a pregnant midwife was loudly accused by a McDonald’s customer of “spreading the virus” as she was trying to buy a coffee, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

A nurse in protective clothes takes a blood sample of a patient potentially infected by COVID-19. Picture: Roni Lehti/AFP

Nurses have told the union they have been “sworn at, spat on and abused” by “increasingly anxious patients” waiting for treatment.

However, Mr Hazzard said only a small number of Australians were demonstrating this “appalling” behaviour.

“I am, on the other hand, very, very pleased that we are also hearing reports of this terrible virus reigniting in some places, that maybe wasn't there for a while, a sense of community,” he said.

“The fact that people are gathering together through the use of social media and finding out who needs food, the fact that people in the streets know who their doctors and nurses are, who are coming back after working 12 and 14 hour shifts, and sometimes longer, and you are actually making sure that you are giving them meals, you are offering to babysit their kids, take their dogs for a walk.

“I want to thank you on behalf of the broader community, because you are what our community should be, and I believe 99.99 per cent are.”