Nurses plead for big change to parking

Anxious nursing students are begging for ‘‘drastic changes’’ and their safety to be valued in an open letter to Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) chief executive David Meates.

The letter comes in the wake of a late-night attack near Christchurch Hospital last week – the fifth reported incident in the last two-and-a-half years.

A student nurse was left wounded after a knife-wielding man allegedly robbed and assaulted her on Hagley Ave after she left work about 10.30pm on Thursday. He fled with her handbag, laptop and other personal possessions.

The letter emailed to Meates, penned by a group of nursing students, detailed the grief caused by the limited parking spaces around the hospital.

The CDHB said it was unable to comment on the letter, but an elected board member highlighted the hundreds of thousands of dollars already being diverted away from healthcare into security services. Andy Dickerson said the parking concerns were ‘‘operational’’ and he was aware ‘‘a lot’’ of work gone on behind the scenes.

‘‘Whether that is adequate, and we should again review it . . . we may need to do that.’’

Dickerson said he was acutely aware the hospital was a 24-houra-day operation with a large female work force, and it was ‘‘terrible to think there are scumbags out there who will attack people who are working hard’’. However, the greatest threat to staff came from people attacking them in the emergency department, rather than on the street, he said.

In the letter, the students said the ‘‘long walk in the dark’’ to get to back to their cars left them on edge, and the ‘‘extra stress’’ on patients was detrimental to their health. One student earlier spoke of carrying scissors in her pocket for security.

Security guards do nightly patrols about 11pm and are available to escort staff to their cars, though they may have to wait until one is available.

‘‘We are encouraged to have the safety of patients and ourselves at the forefront of our care as well as being encouraged to identify what our values are . . . We do not value that the fees we pay to the CDHB in order to gain experience do not seem to include our safety,’’ the letter said.

The students asked for ‘‘drastic changes’’ to hospital parking policy. ‘‘ It is a problem that is inevitably going to get worse as the health precinct continues to grow.’’

The New Zealand Nursing Organisation has expressed concerns about the lack of safe car parking for afternoon staff since 2015.

Members started a petition asking hospital managers to provide safe and adequate car parking options in February last year after a series of incidents – including one where a masked man approached a worker from behind and pressed what may have been a firearm into the back of her head.