Health staff quit after stabbing

Several staff at a Christchurch mental health unit have quit after a ‘‘volatile’’ man they felt shouldn’t have been allowed out allegedly stabbed a woman on a city street.

The resignations come as the director of mental health invoked rarely used statutory powers to order an inspection of the unit at Christchurch’s Hillmorton Hospital following the alleged murder.

Laisa Waka, 52, was just metres from her home in Cheyenne St, Sockburn, when she was attacked by a man wielding a knife about 4.20pm on Saturday. She died at the scene.

A 37-year-old man, who has name suppression, was arrested a short time later, about 500 metres away in Epsom Rd, and charged with murder. The man was a patient at Hillmorton Hospital where he was being cared for in a secure unit.

Health Minister Andrew Little said director of mental health Dr John Crawshaw had ordered an inspection of the facility under section 99 of the Mental Health Act.

‘‘This is the most senior [person] in the statutory office for mental health now intervening to satisfy himself about the actions around this particular patient.’’

The terms of reference for the inspection were still to be determined, but the order was ‘‘very significant’’, Little said.

‘‘He infrequently would invoke that section to conduct an inspection.’’

The Ministry of Health was unable to respond to questions by deadline.

Several staff who worked at the unit where the man was a patient have since resigned, according to a Hillmorton staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A meeting had been held to discuss granting the man leave from the unit, but the final decision was made by a psychiatrist, she said. ‘‘Some [staff] had said they didn’t think he should have been allowed leave.’’

She understood the psychiatrist had since gone on stress leave.

The woman said the man had been quite volatile in the week before the incident and staff had requested help from other units.

‘‘He wasn’t that great the week before; the alarms were going off.’’

She was pleased to hear that the director of mental health had ordered an inspection.

On Wednesday, in response to a series of questions from The Press, Canterbury District Health Board chief executive Dr Peter Bramley said he could ‘‘confirm that the man accused of her murder was a patient of the DHB’s specialist mental health service based at Hillmorton, who had been on community leave’’.

A full review of the man’s care at Hillmorton Hospital was under way following the ‘‘serious adverse event’’.

Little said the decision to grant the man leave would have been made by someone in a senior position, and not taken lightly.

In January, he was notified beds in one of the secure units at Hillmorton Hospital had been capped at 12, rather than 15, as a result of staff shortages.

This came after lawyers complained about getting court-ordered psychiatric reports and one district court judge dismissed charges because the health system was taking ‘‘far too long’’ to complete them.

‘‘That’s what alerted me to the problems, which prompted me to write to the directorgeneral of health to say this is not acceptable if constraints in the forensic mental health services are compromising the administration of justice,’’ Little said.

No further concerns about management of the facility, including staffing shortages, had been brought to his attention since then, he said.