St John ambulance officers are asking people to stop verbally abusing officers when they respond to emergency calls.
While rarely escalating into physical violence, the abuse is intimidating for officers attending callouts and might put patients they are trying to help at risk, says St John Ambulance district operations manager Norm Riedinger.
"There are a lot of situations where people have drunk too much or they are fired up on drugs.
"When we go there they could be having a scrap or an argument and we have to step into the middle of that," he told The Daily Post.
"Certainly I've noticed an increase in the amount of comments made about verbal abuse."
But such situations did not often develop into physical violence towards officers, Mr Riedinger said.
"But they can be quite intimidating for ambulance officers walking into an unknown home in the middle of the night, surrounded by a lot of people fired up on drugs or alcohol."
He said the abuse could affect morale quite badly and made it difficult for ambulance officers to do their jobs properly.
Abuse was normally driven by the fact emotions usually ran high in a situation where someone was sick or injured and family or friends wanted to see that person receive treatment quickly, he said.
"With a lot of the jobs we go to, there is a fairly high level of tension because someone is injured or sick.
"Their priorities might be different from ours at a scene.
"Quite often our professionalism or skill at doing our job can make it look quite relaxed because we do it efficiently and it can look casual or not quick enough to someone else.
"People need to understand our number one reason to be there is to help," Mr Riedinger said.
St John regional operations manager Brent Nielsen said ambulance crews were entitled to remove themselves from a scene if they felt threatened.
"It is astonishing to think that some members of the public would show hostility towards the very people that have come to help them," he said.
"Not only is this type of behaviour towards ambulance officers unacceptable, it can escalate to physical abuse and jeopardise the safety of the patient."
In emergency situations where violence was suspected or reported, ambulance officers were not cleared to enter until police had declared the scene safe.
"We take this issue very seriously, and encourage our staff and volunteers to report assaults to the police and support them in doing so. People who abuse ambulance officers risk prosecution," Mr Nielsen said.
BY THE NUMBERS
Nationwide in the year to June 30, St John:
*Attended 295,311 incidents
*Treated and transported 356,562 patients
*Ambulances clocked up 16,422,436km
*Trained 59,606 students in first aid
*Serviced 8725 events
St John has:
*2277 paid staff (including casuals)
*7817 volunteers
*5514 youth members
Drunken abuse frightens ambos
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