Accept the quake risk or resign, hospital staff told

Anxious staff working in a quakeprone Christchurch hospital building say they have two choices: Accept the risk, or resign.

The Riverside central building was deemed earthquake-prone in a December 2017 engineering report commissioned by the Ministry of Health and released to the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) in January.

Five months on, staff will have the chance to speak to an engineer about the risk.

On May 30, the building was listed on the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) register of earthquakeprone buildings as 20 to less than 34 per cent of the new building standard. Three A4-sized placards were placed at entrances to the building that day.

News of the building’s status has rattled staff, many who have been through the Christchurch earthquake, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) says. The CDHB alerted staff to the report a day before The Press made it public, in an all-staff email from chief executive David Meates. Meates met with about 90 staff to explain the report, but NZNO organiser Christin Watson said some staff did not feel reassured. One staff member, who did not want to be named, said staff ‘‘actually do not have a choice about whether to enter the building or not’’. ‘‘Staff can either accept the risk or resign.’’

Riverside building will remain in use until a replacement acute services building was constructed. That project was initially planned to be finished in 2016 but now would not open until September 2019.