Mental health nurse says police told her to drop assault complaint against patient

By Rowan Quinn of RNZ

An Auckland mental health nurse who was knocked out and dragged by her hair after asking a patient to stop vaping says the police are not taking the incident seriously.

Her union says she is not alone, with nothing done in dozens of similar cases.

The assault happened five months ago when the nurse had asked a patient to hand over her vape.

“She jumped to her feet and said to me, ‘Come on then you f***** b****, come and get it from me,’ and she started approaching me with her fists closed,” the nurse said.

The next thing she remembered was coming to, being shaken by her hair.

Her colleagues intervened and later told her she had been punched in the head and knocked out for a few seconds.

It was her first serious assault in 29 years as a mental health nurse and she suffered a concussion, with short-term memory loss, dizziness, headaches and anxiety.

She rang the police to make a complaint, but said they later phoned her to ask if she would drop it because the person who hit her was a mental health patient, she said. She had not heard from them since.

“I was so upset by that because this young woman had assaulted me, knocked me out. It made me feel like I wasn’t really worth anything.”

The nurse said sometimes mental health patients were so unwell they did not understand what they were doing was wrong, but did not think that was the case in her situation.

The Nurses Organisation said at the very least the nurse deserved a proper investigation.

The union’s mental health chairwoman, Helen Garrick, said there were dozens of assaults reported to the police where nothing was done.

“I’ve had emails from nurses who consider themselves expendable - that assaults that happen to them are not considered serious because it’s in a mental health environment,” she said.

“There is almost a sense that it’s expected of you to be assaulted in those settings.”

Five months on, the nurse said her employer had been great - allowing her a gradual return to work and to start in the office.

“Normally I am not one who suffers from anxiety, but I found if I had face-to-face contact with patients I would get quite anxious.”

Worsening nurse shortage

Garrick said it was very hard to get hard data on nurse assaults - many went unreported.

They were causing some nurses to retire, either for medical reasons or in fear, she said. That was exacerbating the huge staffing shortages in mental health, which were “beyond crisis point”, she said.

Many nurses were working shifts with as few as half the required number of staff working, and others were working gruelling double shifts, she said.

Urgent work was needed to train more.

RNZ has sought a response from the police.

- RNZ