A Newcastle doctor has welcomed new laws that protect GPs and their staff from physical and verbal abuse.
Dr Milton Sales, who runs the Brunker Rd General Practice at Adamstown, said it was "fairly common" for reception staff to face verbal aggression.
"We've had people not provided with their narcotic scripts they were hoping for, who on the way out have kicked the door in," Dr Sales said.
AMA NSW president Michael Bonning commended the NSW government for amending the Crimes Act to include GPs, other private specialists, nurses and receptionists.
Under the amended legislation, which protects frontline health workers, aggressive patients can be jailed for 12 months to 14 years.
"Everyone deserves to feel safe in their workplace," Dr Bonning said.
"This amendment provides additional safeguards to allow all doctors and private health workers to attend to patients with greater peace of mind.
"Attacks - both physical and verbal - on doctors, nurses and practice staff are sadly not uncommon."
Dr Bonning added that physical assaults had "increased in frequency in recent years".
"I was personally attacked in the workplace, but was fortunate enough to manoeuvre my way out of the situation," he said
Dr Sales said verbal abuse of staff, often by phone, was "very common through COVID".
"There'd be a government statement in the media that vaccinations were available, but they hadn't arrived to us yet," he said.
His practice had not experienced physical abuse.
"We take precautions like having an emergency button on the wall of every consulting room, so that if somebody starts to do something we can push that," he said.
"So far that hasn't been required."
But he said the clinic had banned a few patients "because of their treatment of staff".
"You've got to be tough about that. We have a zero tolerance policy to abusive behaviour.
"It's a difficult job working at the front-end of a general practice. Demand and supply sometimes don't match up.
"When someone has been abusive, depending on what's happened, we'll say 'we'll send your records elsewhere' or 'this is your last warning'."
The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Assaults on Frontline Emergency and Health Workers) Bill came into effect in October 2022.
It provided additional protection for frontline workers including police, law enforcement, emergency services and public health workers.
However, doctors, nurses and staff in the private sector were not originally included in the bill.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said "doctors, nurses and staff in private practice face daily abuse".
Mr Park said the abuse was over issues such as "running behind schedule, not having appointments available and not providing mobility parking to ineligible patients".
He said they also received abuse for "refusing to write prescriptions for opiates or benzodiazepines".
"These attacks are not appropriate and they are now illegal."
He added that a "minority of patients" were responsible for abuse, harassment and assault.
