Christchurch Hospital is considered among the highest-risk EDs - along with North Shore, Waitākere, Auckland City, Middlemore, Waikato, Wellington Regional and Dunedin. Photo: Supplied / Te Whatu Ora
A fight between gang members in Christchurch Hospital has highlighted the importance of having extra security guards in emergency departments, Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand says.
Chief people officer Andrew Slater told the Health NZ board today that Christchurch Hospital's emergency department (ED) received another 15 security staff as a result of a $5.7 million boost to beef up surveillance over summer amid increasing violence.
Before that, there was only one security guard working overnight in Christchurch, and some hospitals had no security support at all.
"We had some EDs that had no security guard in them, let alone security guards on site to be able to respond, so the process of looking at this has identified some of those places where there is quite significant local variation."
Christchurch is considered to have one of the highest-risk EDs - along with North Shore, Waitākere, Auckland City, Middlemore, Waikato, Wellington Regional and Dunedin hospital emergency departments.
"In Christchurch we would normally only have one security guard in ED overnight there, this has put dedicated security guards in ED 24/7 and we saw recently that there was an incident of violence between people in ED, not our staff and our security team was able to make an intervention."
Slater said aggressive and violent behaviour in hospitals had been on the rise in recent years.
"Between 2021 and 2022 we saw more than a doubling of incidents of harm towards staff in ED."
Some 1179 assaults were reported by Health NZ in 2021, rising to 2459 in 2022. Another 1267 were reported in the first three months of 2023.
Map of additional emergency department security staff across hospitals in New Zealand. Photo: Supplied / Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand
An evaluation of the initiative to add more security staff was underway, with the ongoing need being assessed.
Health NZ board member Amy Adams said it was great the initiative was rolled out so quickly but future resources should be allocated where they were needed the most.
"I'd like to see going forward that we are understanding where the particular hotspots are of violence and aggression, so we are really targeting them ... and understanding which ones might need a little more because of the composition of its clientele."
Fellow board member Tipa Mahuta said she accompanied a family member to hospital over summer and saw that long wait times contributed to aggression.
"I did visit an ED because my grand-nephew was there, they seemed to have been waiting a long time with no information and they were starting to elevate and I was trying to assure them ... so it does peak when our EDs are busy."
Slater said staff were focused on de-escalating aggressive behaviour before it became a problem.
"In some places where we are able to move our more experienced staff, like here at Middlemore, into ED, we saw them take on a much broader manaaki role in those facilities and connecting with the frontline triage team, versus in some of those smaller areas where we had to contract them in."
The additional security roles are funded until the end of February in the high-risk hospitals, with the government currently investigating a longer-term solution.
