Maori health trust staff 'paid below minimum wage'

Napier Maori mental health provider Hine Ko Tou Ariki Trust paid staff less than the minimum wage to work 12-hour shifts caring for six mentally ill people, it was claimed yesterday.

Lodge managers Trevor and Christine Love were paid $8.30 and $7.70 an hour respectively, and worked 60 hours a week looking after four male and two female patients suffering from schizophrenia and psychotic disorders at the trust's Wairua Lodge in Napier, sources said.

The trust received about $1.5 million from Hawkes Bay District Health Board during the past three years, with $167,000 earmarked for the housing of up to seven mentally ill patients at Wairua Lodge.

The trust also received payments from lodge residents totalling $35,900 a year.

The health board ended the trust's contracts last week after trust management failed to fix problems raised in a 2002 audit.

It said the problems included staff at Wairua Lodge being unqualified, untrained, unsupervised, and unsupported.

Sources said the trust evicted patients and staff from the lodge on Saturday.

The Loves' jobs involved supplying round-the-clock care, including overseeing patients' medication, keeping daily reports, shopping, transporting patients to day programmes and medical appointments and supervising patients.

The Loves had lived and worked at the lodge for nearly eight years, but had received no training in safety or cultural matters, the source said.

Two women with family members at the lodge say they were very happy with the Loves' care, but blamed the health board for failing to ensure the trust gave the Loves the training they needed.

The patients will remain at a Hastings motel this week.

- NZPA