NEWS HR
June 25, 2019
A female security guard is off work and recovering after an assault at Waikato Hospital which has left her with a suspected broken nose. The assault happened on Tuesday, when the guard was called to help with a highly agitated patient who was trying to leave the hospital. The patient lashed out, giving our member a closed-fist punch to the nose. It follows the assault on another female guard last month, which has left her with multiple facial fractures and off work for at least three months. Allied Security is the security contractor for the Waikato District Health Board, and also the Canterbury DHB, where there have been four serious assaults on guards since Christmas. E tū organiser, Iriaka Rauhihi says the union is appalled by the second serious assault in just over a month at the hospital. “What are they waiting for – a fatality? “Assaults are frequent at this DHB and we’re well aware of Allied Security’s record in Christchurch as well. Our members feel unsafe and I’m not the only one worried that someone will die if things don’t improve – our members are saying the same thing,” she says. E tū Campaign Lead, Mat Danaher says the string of assaults has raised serious alarm bells. “We are now looking at a record of failure to stem the on-going violence on hospital wards in Waikato and Christchurch,” says Mat. He says DHBs are due to meet shortly with E tū to review hospital security – a move that’s long over-due. “Violence on our hospital wards is a serious issue, affecting all staff. The nurses complain wards are unsafe and both they and our security members are frequently in the firing line. “There are systemic failures including under-staffing, lack of training and poor health and safety processes. We are looking forward to the upcoming security review and welcome the fact that DHBs nationally are taking this issue seriously.”
June 25, 2019
Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Rose Wall today released a report finding Aria Park Senior Living Limited in breach of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights (the Code) for failing to provide services to an elderly woman living at a retirement village with reasonable care and skill. The woman experienced an unwitnessed fall which resulted in leg and arm pain, and she was unable to stand or weight bear independently. The next day there were difficulties moving the woman with a transfer belt, her pain escalated, and she was reviewed by a GP who recommended that she be taken to hospital for further investigation. The woman was diagnosed with an elbow fracture and was transferred back to the retirement village with instructions to continue her regular pain relief. However, this did not occur and the woman was re-hospitalised due to increased pain levels and later died. Ms Wall’s investigation found failures with respect to the retirement village’s pain assessment and administration, incident reporting, documentation, compliance with its manual handling policy and communication. There were also delays in obtaining a GP review and in contacting an ambulance. Ms Wall found that the retirement village “had the ultimate responsibility to ensure the woman received care that was of an appropriate standard and complied with the Code.” Overall, she found that there were serious issues with the care the woman received from multiple different staff members at the retirement village and that the care was inadequate. Ms Wall recommended that the retirement village report back to HDC on further education it provided to staff, and improvements to its services in the areas of medication administration documentation; the process to support the use of restraint and restraint use documentation; incident reporting; and the process of seeking medical attention and transferring a resident’s care to a hospital.
June 12, 2019
Police have found the body of missing Lower Hutt man Warren Nelson. The 71-year-old went missing on Thursday 6 June and was last seen in Naenae, near his retirement village. Mr Nelson’s body was found in bush in Naenae this morning. There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and it has been referred to the coroner.
June 12, 2019
E tū says a fourth assault on a hospital security guard has raised the alarm over health and safety for security guards at the Waikato and Canterbury DHBs. Both contract out security services to a private company, Allied Security. The latest assault – the fourth serious assault this year – involved a security guard attacked in the Emergency Department at Christchurch Hospital on Queen’s Birthday. The assault occurred just weeks after an earlier very serious attack on a security guard member at Waikato Hospital – where Allied is also the security provider. Another two guards remain off work after serious assaults at Hillmorton and Christchurch Hospitals. Christchurch Senior organiser Ian Hodgetts says the string of assaults since Christmas is alarming.
June 6, 2019
A s.185 (Application for approval of a multi-enterprise agreement) sought by the Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association for its Victorian Stand Alone Community Health Centres Allied Health Professionals Enterprise Agreement 2017-2021 has been agreed by Fair Work Deputy President Colman in Melbourne, on 3 June 2019.
June 3, 2019
Video has surfaced of a 92-year-old mother confessing to shooting her 72-year-old son dead after he threatened to put her in a nursing home. Anna Mae Blessing was arrested last year for shooting her son Thomas dead. Blessing, who dies in November in hospice care while awaiting trial, says in a video interview with police that she had two guns stashed inside her dressing gown. She told police that as Thomas came towards her she fired multiple rounds at her only son. “I can’t remember the calibre, it was a good size one,” she said. “I backed up and I pulled the trigger, and it broke the mirror and I don’t know what I did. Then Tom was going to come at me again so I pulled the trigger … I’m sure the second round hit him.”
June 3, 2019
A Petone man who decapitated his elderly neighbour believed he was responsible for his being evicted. Eugene Baker has admitted murdering 71-year-old Francis Tyson in November last year. Both men dealt synthetic drugs from their Jackson Street Housing New Zealand flats. In the days leading up to the killing, Baker had a number of arguments with Tyson around dealing. He believed the pensioner was an informant for Housing New Zealand and was to blame for his eviction notice. The 42-year-old will be sentenced in June.
June 3, 2019
An elderly man charged with murdering his partner at a Raumati Beach retirement village has been found unfit to stand trial. The finding was made at the High Court in Wellington on Friday, about Edmund Alan Jenkins, 75, who had cognitive impairment due to dementia, and was not going to improve. Edith Roderique, 70, of Ōtaki, died on March 4 or 5. Roderique and Jenkins had been in a relationship for about three years and she often visited him at the retirement village where he lived, and sometimes stayed the night, a court decision said. In her judgment Justice Rebecca Ellis said after spending the night together Jenkins woke to the alarm at 7.30am on March 5. He got out of bed and found a knife that had not been put away, went back to the bed and stabbed Roderique repeatedly in the chest. A medical alarm was set off and Jenkins showed the body to the first staff member to attend. Jenkins had blood on him and told the first person, and others, “I did it, I did it, I did it”. Later Jenkins told police he just meant to scare her with the knife as a joke but she jumped at him and screamed. He was said to have a hazy recollection of what happened after that, but acknowledged he stabbed her, a police summary of witness accounts said. The judge said Jenkins was unfit to stand trial and made him a special patient. Name suppression was lifted. He sat in the dock with a nurse while lawyer Janine Bonifant represented him during the court hearing. At the end of the hearing the judge asked the nurse if Jenkins had understood what had happened at the hearing on Friday. “As well as he can,” the nurse replied. Two psychiatrists gave evidence that Jenkins probably had frontal lobe dementia, and his thinking and language were impaired.
