PHARMACY workers are continuing to face aggressive and violent behaviour from patients, with a pharmacist at Chemist Warehouse's Geraldton, WA, store the latest to be assaulted.
Pharmacist, Mahmoud Elshwehk, was injured after being punched by a patient who was angry at being asked to wait for a COVID-19 vaccination, The West Australian reported.
WA Police Senior Sergeant, Chris Martin, reported that the suspect had entered the store demanding a COVID-19 shot that he needed for work purposes, but lashed out when told he would need to wait for a pharmacist to become available to administer the jab.
"The suspect had lost his temper, pushing items of the shelf inside the store and created quite a disturbance," he said.
"He was asked to leave, and as he was escorted out of the premises by one of the staff members of the Chemist Warehouse, he has punched him in the jaw."
A member of staff at the store told The West Australia that while they were used to experiencing aggressive behaviour from frustrated patients, the alleged assault was "out of the ordinary".
The incident came six months after Elshwehk rejected a bribe from a woman who offered an "unspecified" sum if he would falsify her vaccination record to record that she had received the shot (PD 11 Nov 2021).
Since the start of the pandemic several pharmacy employees across the country have been assaulted by customers, including a 17-year-old pharmacy assistant, who was verbally abused by a 54-year-old man at a Pharmacy4Less store near Newcastle, NSW, last Aug, before he kicked her (PD 26 Aug 2021).
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