{"id":13465,"date":"2025-05-06T05:37:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13465"},"modified":"2025-05-06T05:37:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:37:18","slug":"palmerston-north-hospital-staff-call-for-more-security-after-violent-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13465","title":{"rendered":"Palmerston North Hospital staff call for more security after violent attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article__header c-story-header\">\n<div class=\"c-story-header__meta\">\n<div class=\"c-social\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<nav class=\"c-social__menu\">\n<div class=\"c-social__buttons\">\n<p><span class=\"author-name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/authors\/jimmy-ellingham\">Jimmy Ellingham<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0<span class=\"author-job\">Checkpoint reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-byline\">\n<div class=\"c-byline__author\">\n<div class=\"author-detail\">\n<div class=\"author-social\"><span class=\"author-email icon-email\"><a href=\"mailto:jimmy.ellingham@rnz.co.nz?subject=Palmerston%20North%20Hospital%20staff%20call%20for%20more%20security%20after%20violent%20attacks\">jimmy.ellingham@rnz.co.nz<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article__body\">\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--dxJgDVY5--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1643870205\/4M0HBNZ_image_crop_134622?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"Palmerston North Hospital, Manawat\u016b.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Staff may stop coming to work at Palmerston North Hospital, if they continue to feel at risk.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Palmerston North Hospital staff member was knocked unconscious the same night as a nurse was held up at gunpoint<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Staff say they face violence and aggression every day<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>They&#8217;ve called for beefed-up power for hospital security<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Health NZ says it has introduced more security measures in recent weeks<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A Palmerston North Hospital staff member was knocked unconscious on the same night as another nurse was held up at gunpoint when she left work.<\/p>\n<p>Hospital senior staff say not a day goes by without a health worker getting abused or assaulted, and staff are feeling frightened and unsafe.<\/p>\n<p>They want security guards to have additional powers so &#8211; as happens in courts and at Parliament &#8211; they can restrain people acting violently.<\/p>\n<p>Hospital staff were shocked at what happened to the nurse held at gunpoint, but perhaps not surprised.<\/p>\n<div class=\"block-item\">\n<div class=\"c-play-controller u-blocklink\" data-uuid=\"b83458c1-e8ea-43df-a2fd-3ec845fbd9c8\">\n<div>\n<article class=\"relative w-full h-screen max-h-[calc(10rem*var(--base-multiplier))] min-h-[calc(6rem*var(--base-multiplier))] bg-off-white\">\n<div class=\"flex h-full\">\n<div class=\"relative aspect-square h-full flex-none overflow-hidden\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"absolute h-full w-full object-cover\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--G_iieSFu--\/c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,h_100,q_auto,w_100\/v1671591260\/4LGF99X_checkpoint_internal_cover_png?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" aria-hidden=\"true\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-grow flex-col justify-between overflow-hidden p-3\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-2\">\n<h3 class=\"order-2 mb-2 text-black line-clamp-2 text-sm\">Staff feeling unsafe after assaults at Palmerston North Hospital<\/h3>\n<div class=\"order-1 flex items-baseline gap-3 text-xs leading-tight\"><span class=\"font-sans-semibold line-clamp-1 text-heavy-grey\">Checkpoint<\/span><span class=\"whitespace-nowrap tabular-nums text-xs text-heavy-grey\">5 May 2025<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex items-center justify-between gap-2\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center gap-3\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center\"><\/div>\n<p><button class=\"inline-flex items-center justify-center whitespace-nowrap rounded-full border text-sm transition-colors *:transition-colors disabled:cursor-not-allowed font-sans-normal px-2 py-[calc(0.1rem*var(--base-multiplier))] py-[calc(0.1rem*var(--base-multiplier))] pl-1 leading-tight hover:text-white *:hover:text-white hover:bg-brand hover:border-brand *:text-dark-grey border-white bg-white text-black [&amp;&gt;svg]:text-brand !pr-2 [&amp;&gt;span]:text-black [&amp;&gt;span]:hover:!text-white\" style=\"--tw-border-spacing-x: 0;--tw-border-spacing-y: 0;--tw-translate-x: 0;--tw-translate-y: 0;--tw-rotate: 0;--tw-skew-x: 0;--tw-skew-y: 0;--tw-scale-x: 1;--tw-scale-y: 1;--tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity;--tw-ring-offset-width: 0px;--tw-ring-offset-color: #fff;--tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000;--tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000;--tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000;--tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000;font-family: inherit;font-size: 16.25px;font-weight: 400;line-height: 1.125;letter-spacing: inherit;color: #000000;margin: 0px;text-transform: none;background-color: #ffffff;background-image: none;cursor: pointer;align-items: center;justify-content: center;border-radius: 9999px;--tw-border-opacity: 1;--tw-bg-opacity: 1;--tw-text-opacity: 1;padding: 1.25px 5px !important 1.25px 2.5px;border: 1px solid #ffffff\" aria-label=\"Queue Staff feeling unsafe after assaults at Palmerston North Hospital\"><span class=\"mr-2\">Queue<\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<div class=\"ml-auto flex items-center gap-2 text-black\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>NZ Nurses Organisation delegate David Goldstone said, on the same night, another colleague suffered a serious head injury.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was a [staff] member inside the hospital who was knocked out,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He won&#8217;t be returning to work.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was also another one last week, when a guard was assaulted. It happens every day,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been there 22 years and nothing&#8217;s changed in 22 years towards aggression &#8211; there&#8217;re no consequences. People think they can get away with it, and come and do whatever they like.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fellow organisation delegate Dorothy Mostofian further outlined the reality to frontline healthcare workers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s not a single shift in the entire hospital when anyone goes home at the end of their shift and goes: &#8216;I didn&#8217;t get spat at, things thrown at me, verbally assaulted, haven&#8217;t had any threats against my life and I haven&#8217;t felt like someone&#8217;s following me&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think a single nurse, healthcare assistant or doctor in the entire hospital could actually say that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last month a man jumped into a nurse&#8217;s car, when she finished her shift late at night, pointed a gun at her and told her to drive.<\/p>\n<p>She managed to escape the car unharmed to raise the alarm. Police said their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/558121\/gun-wielding-man-jumps-into-palmerston-north-nurse-s-car-threatens-her-outside-hospital\">investigation into the incident was continuing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mostofian said even the recent security boost for emergency departments hadn&#8217;t made a huge impact.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Those security guards are also still being taken away to areas in the rest of the hospital when they are needed, so we don&#8217;t have a security guard 24-7 in the department,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Even when they are there, they have no power to do anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Association of Salaried Medical Specialists delegate Dr Thomas Carter said staff may stop coming to work, if they felt continually at risk.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It makes it quite difficult when you don&#8217;t have any support coming and you know it&#8217;s going to be minutes, hours, days until you can get this problem sorted out, and you&#8217;ve got a potentially violent person who&#8217;s potentially unwell.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t necessarily restrain them and hold them down. We don&#8217;t have that skillset.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After the nurse was threatened at gunpoint, the hospital said it boosted security, with two extra guards who could escort workers to and from their cars.<\/p>\n<p>Staff were also allowed to shift cars closer to the building later in the day, but in practice, often didn&#8217;t have time for this. Instead, they would pair up to walk to their vehicles or get partners to pick them up from the entrance.<\/p>\n<p>Nurses organisation delegate Victoria Richards said buddying up or getting a security escort wasn&#8217;t always possible, as people finished shifts at different times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[Two guards] doesn&#8217;t go far enough at all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got a big space, we&#8217;ve got a lot of workers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Staff would like better lighting, improved security cameras and a secure carpark only they could access. They&#8217;ve met with Palmerston North MP Tangi Utikere to discuss this, and more broadly their safety concerns and wish to empower security staff.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve given them an undertaking that I will seek to engage direct with Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ locally here, as I do on a range of other issues from week to week,&#8221; Utikere said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be putting to them what it is they have in place to support the health and wellbeing of their workers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Health NZ MidCentral operations group director Sarah Fenwick said it was committed to making staff feel safer and recognised the gunpoint incident, which didn&#8217;t happen on hospital grounds, was unsettling.<\/p>\n<p>Fenwick said the staff member involved was receiving support and a range of measures were immediately introduced to boost staff safety. These included the security escort to vehicles, increasing security services on hospital grounds, and &#8220;opening up&#8221; access to the staff carpark for people working afternoon and night shifts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lighting has been audited in all outside carparking areas to ensure it is well maintained,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Interim access to well-lit parking onsite, with dedicated security for staff working afternoon and night shifts, will continue, while a more permanent solution for out-of-hours carparking is developed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero,<\/a>\u00a0<b>a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jimmy Ellingham,\u00a0Checkpoint reporter jimmy.ellingham@rnz.co.nz Staff may stop coming to work at Palmerston North Hospital, if they continue to feel at risk.\u00a0Photo:\u00a0Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ Palmerston North Hospital staff member was knocked unconscious the same night as a nurse was held up at gunpoint Staff say they face violence and aggression every day They&#8217;ve called for beefed-up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13467,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13465\/revisions\/13467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}