THE Respect Us initiative at the Great Western Hospital is entirely justified, although decent people will be disgusted by the fact that such an initiative is necessary.

That almost 240 doctors and nurses were assaulted by patients in the last year alone is disgraceful.

The normal duties of hospital medical staff involve dealing with situations and stresses the like of which would send most of us fleeing. Their task is to see us at our most vulnerable and frightened, to calm us, to help us, to heal our illnesses and injuries and – in many instances – to save our lives.

That they should also have to run the risk of being subjected to violence by the petulant, tantrum-throwing dregs of society is an unacceptable injustice.

Unless an aggressor is gravely mentally ill or driven temporarily out of their mind by pain, there is absolutely no excuse for such behaviour. We wholeheartedly support any doctor or nurse who refuses to treat a wantonly violent, aggressive or abusive person, and we salute moves to make sure such people are prosecuted.

However, we fear that the initiative will not be as effective as hospital bosses hope unless prosecutors and the judicial system give it their full support. There is no point in having some odious thug arrested if a foolish prosecutor allows them to plead guilty to a lesser offence – or a foolish judge listens sympathetically to excuses bleated in court.

Let there be a new rule: abuse a doctor or nurse and you’ll go untreated or go to jail.