{"id":17602,"date":"2026-06-08T05:40:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17602"},"modified":"2026-06-08T05:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:40:38","slug":"uni-students-death-at-palmerston-nth-mental-health-ward-was-preventable-coroner-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17602","title":{"rendered":"Uni student&#8217;s death at Palmerston Nth mental health ward was preventable, coroner rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><i>Warning: This story discusses suicide<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Death of 21-year-old university student at Palmerston North Hospital mental health ward in 2014 ruled a suicide<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Coroner Matthew Bates says Erica Hume&#8217;s death could have been avoided if staff followed policies and procedures<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Erica Hume&#8217;s parents hope coroner&#8217;s report will result in change<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Health NZ says it will implement all of the coroner&#8217;s recommendations<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The death by suicide of a 21-year-old university student in an overcrowded mental health unit that wasn&#8217;t fit for purpose was preventable, a coroner has ruled.<\/p>\n<p>Coroner Matthew Bates said Erica Hume&#8217;s death in May 2014 at Palmerston North Hospital could have been avoided if staff at the unit had correctly followed policies and procedures,<\/p>\n<p>Hume&#8217;s parents Carey and Owen Hume say they hope Coroner Bates&#8217; ruling, which runs to more than 200 pages, will result in change and prevent further deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Health NZ says it accepts the coroner&#8217;s findings and is working to implement the 20 recommendations detailed in the report.<\/p>\n<p>Hume died just a month after Shaun Gray died by suicide in the same hospital ward &#8211; a death Coroner Bates also found preventable, in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/545253\/man-who-died-on-mental-health-ward-in-2014-was-failed-by-staff-coroner\">ruling released last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The coroner said staff at the old unit, known as &#8216;ward 21&#8217;, were under pressure due to limited resourcing and overcrowding, and lacked a cohesive team approach.<\/p>\n<p>The old unit itself was &#8220;a poorly designed unit that was never fit for purpose,&#8221; the coroner said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I consider the policies and procedures in place for ward 21 at the time of Erica&#8217;s death were adequate, and that adherence to them may have prevented Erica&#8217;s death or at least reduced the changes of it occurring.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I find that management and staff failures to ensure those policies were adhered to resulted in Erica receiving suboptimal care, which ultimately enabled her to take her own life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Her death was avoidable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hume and Gray&#8217;s deaths prompted reviews of the ward, which found it unfit for purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Funding for a new ward was confirmed before the 2020 election and after delays it\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/574265\/long-awaited-new-mental-health-ward-opens-in-palmerston-north\">opened last year<\/a>. Patients moved in from early February.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the coronial cases faced years of delay &#8211; for which the Hume and Gray families have received apologies &#8211; before the files were assigned to Coroner Bates and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/473105\/mother-tells-inquest-daughter-s-death-preventable-urges-hospital-to-take-responsibility\">inquests held in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There were other deaths of ward patients, including a teenager in 2021, where an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/483065\/father-worried-new-palmerston-north-hospital-mental-health-ward-not-set-to-open-until-2025\">internal report identified issues<\/a>\u00a0such as a lack of communication between staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: This story discusses suicide Death of 21-year-old university student at Palmerston North Hospital mental health ward in 2014 ruled a suicide Coroner Matthew Bates says Erica Hume&#8217;s death could have been avoided if staff followed policies and procedures Erica Hume&#8217;s parents hope coroner&#8217;s report will result in change Health NZ says it will implement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17602","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\/17602","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=17602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17604,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17602\/revisions\/17604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}