Nurse fears attacker’s return
‘‘He was just unlucky not to kill me.’’ Wendy Hamer
A mental health nurse who survived a brutal assault by a patient is mortified to learn he is returning to Nelson, and says being ignored by health and justice officials has done as much damage as the attack.
Wendy Hamer was punched, kicked, stabbed and scalded with boiling water by Blair Swain when she went to visit him in respite care in Nelson on New Year’s Eve 2009.
In 2011, Swain was found not guilty of attempted murder, with the judge declaring that he was insane. He has been receiving treatment in Hillmorton Hospital in Christchurch.
Hamer said she had seen Swain many times before the assault, and he greeted her at the Gateway Housing Trust facility with a smile.
‘‘He said, ‘Hi Wendy, come in’. ‘‘I turned to my right and saw the curtains had been pulled, and I was about to ask, ‘Why are they pulled in the middle of the day?’ . . . the next thing I recall is getting up off the floor.’’
Over 40 minutes, Swain subjected her to a ‘‘frenzied attack’’, punching, kicking and trying to choke her, and stabbing her with such force it broke the knife into pieces.
‘‘He was just pummelling . . . punching me all the time. I was crouched over my legs, trying to protect my face, because that’s where the most harm was, which is when I think I was stabbed. I don’t actually know – I just wondered where all the blood had come from.’’
Hamer tried to get out but couldn’t coordinate the locks on Swain’s door.
It was then that he poured boiling water over her, leaving her with burns to 30 per cent of her body.
‘‘He said, ‘I’m going to kill you, Wendy, and I will get let off on psychiatric defence’.’’
Hamer said she had worked hard to rebuild her life, and had just got to a point where she felt truly happy.
However, the trauma of the attack was brought back two weeks ago, when she got a letter from Nelson Marlborough Health, telling her Swain would be transferred to the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit at Nelson Hospital from forensic services in Christchurch.
Hamer said she had not been consulted on the move, due to take place yesterday.
‘‘I was told [by the health board] . . . that I wasn’t entitled to know anyway. So they went to Swain and asked his permission – could they tell me?
‘‘That is so offensive. He was just unlucky not to kill me, he tried hard enough.’’
The Ministry of Health’s director of mental health and addiction, Dr John Crawshaw, said he could not comment on individual cases because of patient privacy. But he said all special patients were closely monitored to allow a safe and gradual reintegration into the community as their condition improved.
Special patients were detained in hospital for a varying period of time – it could be indefinite, he said.
‘‘The risk of the special patient to themselves and the public is carefully considered, with each decision about leave and (after a period of adaptive living in the community) eventual change of legal status.’’
Crawshaw said that as patients progressed through their treatment, leave from hospital or transfer to a less secure hospital may become appropriate. Any hospital leave was initially escorted by staff, and the escorts could only be reduced with the approval of the Director of Mental Health.
But Hamer said she had been given no information or reassurance about Swain’s progress.
‘‘Is he improved? Is he still talking about wanting to kill me? I’m not entitled to anything – I have no understanding of why he’s being transferred.
‘‘He’s entitled to his recovery and treatment as well. I only want the same as him, to be treated with respect.’’
Crawshaw said an exception to the patient privacy rule existed for registered victims of special patients. Legislation set out specific points along a special patient’s rehabilitation where prior notice of certain types of leave must be given to registered victims.
The first notice of this kind occurs when the special patient is granted unescorted community leave from hospital. Others are first unescorted overnight leave and impending discharge.
Victims must also be told as soon as practicable if the patient escapes or dies.
Nelson Marlborough Health chief medical officer Dr Nick Baker said it acknowledged the upset and stress for the victim.
‘‘We will continue to support, inform and communicate with the victim at their request. We will do this in a private setting and within the constraints of the Privacy Act, which limits what we can say about patients, our employees and about confidential discussions and meetings.
‘‘While the Victims’ Right Act does not compel DHBs to notify victims about patient transfers, in this instance we gained specific consent to notify the victim, in writing and in person.’’
Hamer, who worked in DHB mental health services for ‘‘most of her working career’’, said she had been left out of the process from the beginning.
Weeks after the attack, Swain was assessed by psychiatrists who decided he was insane, she said.
‘‘They never spoke to me. I
was the prime witness.
‘‘They decided because he had a mental illness . . . he couldn’t have known what he was doing and that it was wrong.
‘‘They’re entitled to their decision, but they were wrong.’’
Hamer said victims in such attacks were not being heard, and failings in the services and the systems for victims were harming them more than the original attacks.
She had no lawyer during court proceedings. ‘‘Three days before [the verdict], I said, ‘Can I at least do a victim impact statement or something? . . . and then I was told I was lucky the judge took time to read it.
‘‘I couldn’t read it out in court. I never got my say.’’
Hamer said that if Swain had gone through the criminal justice system, she would have had more rights.
‘‘I would be entitled to have a parole hearing, I would be entitled to know what was going on.
‘‘Those sort of entitlements would give me some power back.
‘‘Because it wasn’t actually a crime, I don’t fit a category.’’
Resilience had got her through the experience, as well as her family, and life experience of ‘‘knowing it would get better’’, she said.
Hamer is calling for an inquiry into the treatment of victims of such attacks.
‘‘If we just did patient rights and victim rights, we’d have better communication, and the ongoing harm you feel from not being heard again and again and again would be mitigated.
‘‘I want them to talk to us, listen to our lived stories, learn from the mistakes that we know happened.’’