Hospital shooting deserves attention

"ON any other day, an inmate getting fatally shot outside a regional hospital in NSW, would have been big news around Australia."

HOSPITAL SHOOTING: POLICE have confirmed they are investing the death of a man who was shot by Corrective Service Officers at Lismore on Friday (March 15, 2019) evening around 7.30pm. A 43-year-old man, who was in the custody of the Corrective Services NSW officers, had been shot. Picture: Alison Paterson

ON any other day, an inmate getting fatally shot outside a regional hospital in NSW, would have been big news around Australia.

But with much of the media focused on the Christchurch massacre, and local links to the Australian gunman's background, it was largely ignored.

How a prison inmate seeking treatment for epilepsy wound up in the emergency department of Lismore Base Hospital, assaulted a Corrective Services NSW officer and then made an attempt to escape, before being shot, is the subject of at least two inquiries.

And it's extremely lucky with at least two or more shots being fired outside a busy public health facility, that no one else was injured by a stray bullet or ricochet.

Both Lismore Mayor Isaac Smith and the Health Services Union have called for a review into inmate medical transfer protocol.

Bottom line, was Lismore Base the best place for an inmate with epilepsy to be in one of the busiest wards on one of its busiest nights?

No doubt people in our criminal justice system have every right to seek medical assistance, but you'd think it would be better for an on-call doctor to make a 'house' visit rather than simply bring him into the ED with a couple of armed guards.

According to the HSU it is the third such event at a hospital in NSW over the past three years.

Perhaps a little more transparency on this issue might be good thing and bring about a change.

Because I'd wager the average person in the street wouldn't be aware of this practice at the best of times.

I'm sure Friday's episode was traumatic enough for the hospital staff, patients and bystanders, who may have witnessed the shooting and for the first responders who had to treat the inmate fatally shot.

Originally published as Hospital shooting deserves attention