Union wants tougher penalties for paramedic assault

From ABC News:

The ambulance union says new laws are needed to stop people from assaulting paramedics, after one was bashed outside the Cairns Base Hospital in far north Queensland.

It says a frustrated patient kicked a paramedic in the back and head after spending two-and-half hours in the back of an ambulance outside the emergency department.

[the union] says the assault of a paramedic should be treated like an assault on a police officer and carry a heavier penalty.

This is one of those stories which is wrong in so many ways you don't know where to start. It points to at least three major systemic faults in the government of Queensland.

1. The union is wrong. You should not need to be someone "special" for the law to protect you from assault. Assaulting a copper should be the same as assaulting an ambo should be the same as assaulting you or me. And it should be bad, very bad. And before anyone asks, no I am not advocating mandatory (aka mindless) sentencing. I am asking for routine serious sentencing for common assault. Shouldn't be a big ask.
2. Bed block (people stuck in the emergency department because the hospital is full) and ramping (people stuck in ambulances because the ED is full) have got to be fixed. They are the insane result of the way efficiency is measured in hospitals. Hospital administrators actually get rewarded when their hospitals are full to the rafters; it is interpreted as "efficient use of resources".
3. Finally, what was someone who was fit enough to kick a paramedic in the head doing in an ambulance in the first place? People who are triage category 1 or 2 should not be sitting on the ramp (even if the ED is full) and people who are not triage category 1 or 2 should be waiting in chairs, not in an ambulance.

Off my high-horse and back to work...