Nursing staff ‘neglected’ by managers

Mental health institutions have always been isolated. Hillmorton Hospital is no longer physically isolated but it is still isolated by neglect, especially of its dedicated staff.

Assaults on nursing staff, recently half a dozen in a weekend, are not unusual. Nurses are subjected daily to verbal and physical abuse that is not tolerated in any other public institution.

Work and Income has often dour and passively aggressive officers vetting elderly and under-privileged citizens at the door.

In contrast, Hillmorton security officers patrol car parks but are forbidden to intervene physically even when nurses are threatened. Instead, highly-trained mental health nurses have to defend themselves.

They must be the only civil servants outside the armed forces given training in basic unarmed combat.

Mental health nursing was once a fulfilling vocation: now it is more like a sentence, with hard labour and constant threats of violence.

Contributing to nurses’ feeling of neglect at Hillmorton, CDHB management seems oblivious to staff conditions, such as mice in a staff kitchen, broken office chairs and mould on a staffroom ceiling (written off as ‘‘just dirt’’).

Little wonder that nurses have rejected the recent pay offer. It went nowhere towards recognising nurses’ contribution to the community, nor in redressing the loss of parity nurses once held with teachers and police, and nowhere towards restoring nurses’ faith in the management of the health system.