Front line staff need community support

Workers Party Assembly candidate Damien Harte has condemned those guilty of abusing NHS and emergency services staff and has called for a community response to these type of incidents.

 Recently released figures show that almost 25,000 front line public sector workers were either verbally or physically assaulted over the past three years.

” The majority of these attacks take place on health and social care staff in our hospitals. local clinics and in the community. Around  8,000  workers are subject to these attacks each year , Damien said

Speaking in the Upper Bann constituency Damien said, ‘ Front-line health staff and emergency workers go to work every day to help people and serve the community. They should never be subjected to abuse or attack and we all have a civic responsibility to support them in their work and to support  a culture of  zero tolerance  on attacks”

Northern Ireland’s firefighters have been  attacked 357 times in the past three years while ambulance staff were subjected to 947 attacks in the same period.