Woman threw chair across surgery in row over medication request

Mar 28 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

A WOMAN patient threw a chair across a doctor’s surgery – putting an experienced GP in “immediate personal danger”, a court heard yesterday.

Philomena McDonagh, 24, started screaming at her new doctor after he turned down her request for medication.

Cardiff Crown Court heard when Dr Kevin Thompson said he would call the police McDonagh grabbed a chair and threw it across the consultation room.

Prosecutor Julian Greenwood said, “In 25 years of general practice Dr Thompson described this as the highest level of violence he’s ever encountered.”

Dr Thompson in a statement said, “She began screaming at me and when I told her I would call the police she jumped to her feet and threw a chair across the room.

“It made me feel very frightened and I felt I was in immediate personal danger.”

When Dr Thompson escorted McDonagh out of the practice she started shouting at people in the waiting room – falsely claiming the GP asked her to perform a sexual act. She then told him, “I’m going to do your cars,” referring to the cars outside in the car park.

McDonagh left the Four Elms Surgery, on Newport Road, in Cardiff, and was later arrested.

Peter Harding-Roberts, defending, said that McDonagh apologised for what she had done.

Donagh pleaded guilty to public disorder.

Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones told her, “What you did to that doctor was utterly wrong.”

McDonagh, formerly of Roath, Cardiff, but currently of no fixed address, was given a 12-month community order.