Knife-wielding men make nurses beg for lives

Four psychiatric nurses were threatened with a butcher’s knife and forced to beg for mercy in a terrifying attack in Kildare, it emerged tonight.

The female nurses were on duty in the Lakeview Acute Psychiatric Unit at Naas General hospital at 3am when two men armed with a butcher’s knife broke through the re-enforced glass panels in the door.

The nurses took refuge in their office but the men, who were dripping with blood from their injuries from the broken glass, broke through the door

The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) said the men threatened to kill the nurses if they did not get down on their knees and beg for mercy.

“It appears as if they were looking for a female nurse who they had made threats against yesterday. It’s extremely fortunate that she was moved off the unit. We believe that if she was there last night she’d have been murdered,” said industrial relations officer Seamus Murphy.

Earlier in the week, the men had attended the Lakeview unit, which provides emergency care for up to 40 psychiatric patients.

Mr Murphy said there was an atmosphere of terror in the ward, with one frightened patient ringing 999 for assistance on his mobile phone.

“It was like something you’d see in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” he said.

The nurses managed to eventually calm the men down and the Gardaí were called to the scene.

A Garda spokesman confirmed that two men had been arrested and charged in relation to the incident.

The PNA is currently gathering statistics on the number of assaults on psychiatric nurses each year.

According to the most recent figures, more than 1,600 nurses were physically or verbally assaulted in 2001.

After psychiatric nurses threatened industrial action, former Health Minister Micháel Martin agreed to establish a compensation tribunal to ensure that payments were made more speedily.

However, Health Minister Mary Harney told the PNA last year that there were legal difficulties with restricting the operation of the tribunal to psychiatric nurses alone and promised to improve the existing compensation scheme instead.

The PNA was due to be informed of the details last October but has not received any yet.