New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) president Anne Daniels said as Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department continued to have long wait times and chronic understaffing, nurses had come to expect threats, verbal and physical assaults every shift.
She claimed this was a known issue and nothing had been done about it.
"On average, over 56% of every shift is understaffed and that number is worse in paediatrics, EDs and mental health ... where a great deal of the violence and abuse is occurring.
"It’s unsurprising and, unfortunately, we know what we need to do about that."
She said Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) and the government were aware of the issue, but underfunding of the health system and refusal to address the lack of staff showed their safety was not a priority.
"This government is hell-bent on saving money and putting it elsewhere, particularly in the hands of private health providers — we know the shortfall is dire."
That eventually led people waiting until a problem was suddenly urgent and having to go to the ED, she said.
"You can imagine people who need healthcare, who are trying to do the right thing by going to their GPs, are getting very frustrated with the fact that the public health system is not meeting their needs when it should be."
There had been a "noticeable uptick" in abuse directed towards staff in the past two years, Ms Daniels said. Health professionals understood why there were frustrations and the abuse directed to them was not personal, but "there’s no excuse for that".
Ms Daniels said the government had acknowledged the issue by spending more than $30million on extra security staff at hospital and healthcare centres.
"Hiring security staff does not fix the problems — nothing’s been done to address the actual underlying issues ... actual issues that are contributing to violence and abuse need to be fixed."
Health Minister Simeon Brown said healthcare professionals deserved to go to work feeling safe and to be treated with respect.
"That’s why through Budget 2024, the government committed $31million to strengthen hospital security."
He said included in that was increasing security in eight New Zealand EDs, boosting security surge capacity for all emergency departments and providing additional training for Health New Zealand’s security team of more than 1000 staff.
HNZ Southern operations group director Craig Ashton said staff wellbeing and safety was a critical part of delivering quality healthcare to New Zealanders.
"We take violence and aggression seriously and our staff have the right to expect to be safe from violence and abuse at work. We are committed to strengthening our workforce and continue to actively recruit to vacancies at Dunedin Hospital, he said
"We are continuing to roll out an intensive violence reduction training to security and clinical staff across our hospitals, as part of the government’s $31million funding commitment over four years. We expect our wider programme of work to provide safer environments for staff and patients."
