A campaign to halt attacks on doctors and other health workers in the North has been demanded by a doctors' organisation. The British Medical Association has claimed that some 5,000 attacks on NHS staff and family doctors were carried out in the last year.
The association is also pressing for those responsible for such attacks to receive jail sentences.
Dr Brian Patterson said the Northern Ireland branch of the BMA was carrying out a survey of its members to establish the level of threats and acts of violence against medical practitioners in the North.
A questionnaire is being distributed to quantify the rising number of attacks in advance of a policy announcement on the problem next spring.
"Attacks on, threats to, and verbal abuse of doctors and other healthcare workers have to stop," Dr Patterson said. "Urgent action is needed to halt this totally unacceptable situation." Pressing for a zero-tolerance approach, he called for stiffer penalties to be imposed by the courts.
"It's only when people realise they'll face a custodial sentence if they attack doctors and other healthcare workers that an end will be in sight," he added.
"We want to see the Department of Health here taking more affirmative action by encouraging all staff to report any abusive or violent acts perpetrated against them and as frequently as possible to involve the Police Service of Northern Ireland."
The BMA claims have been supported by nurses' representatives, who also say there are thousands of physical and verbal attacks on nursing staff every year.
The Ulster Unionists backed the call for jail sentences for those who attack health service personnel.
East Derry Assembly member David McClarty said: "Doctors, nurses and others in the field of medical care deserve protection, and the sooner those who resort to violence against them are punished by custodial sentences, the sooner the message will go out loud and clear that their actions are not going to be tolerated."
Mr McClarty added: "It is a huge problem and one which must be tackled effectively."
Sinn Féin health spokesman John O'Dowd said politicians had to concentrate on the problem.
"Hospitals are supposed to be places of relaxation and recuperation. Yet patients and staff alike are quickly coming to find them places of fear."
SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell, a GP with a large practice in south Belfast, said he had been attacked twice and threatened a dozen times in the past 25 years.
"I support the BMA's plans," he said. "A nurse in casualty has to put up with this all too often."
Dr McDonnell said many surgeries, including his own, were putting in place plans to deal with threatening patients.
These include panic button systems and direct-line links to PSNI stations.