KEY POINTS:
Staff in Dunedin Hospital's emergency department are so abusive to new employees that some are quitting within their first weeks of work, a former nurse has claimed.
Otago District Health Board chief executive Brian Rousseau and senior management yesterday confirmed the woman's claims were accurate.
Verbal abuse, ranging from threats, taunts and bullying to swearing, yelling and screaming in front of patients, convinced the nurse to leave her job at the department, just four days into her orientation in early August.
The nurse, who has requested anonymity, had worked as a nurse and health professional for 36 years in New Zealand and overseas.
She approached the Otago Daily Times after reading the comments of retiring Dunedin emergency department (ED) nurse Denise Harger, who told the newspaper in July of discontent in the understaffed department.
Many of the unnamed nurse's claims were included in a letter addressed to the hospital on August 6. In its response on August 30, obtained by the ODT, emergency, internal medicine and gastroenterology service manager Janet Dixon, in conjunction with ED acting charge nurse manager Angela Hailes and human resources adviser Jan Richardson, accepted her claims were accurate.
Ms Dixon apologised for two events, referred to an "unhealthy work culture" in the department and concluded: "I am sorry you have had such a traumatic experience in the short time you worked within our department.
"We have taken you [sic] concerns very seriously and will be working extremely hard to ensure that the situation you were placed in does not reoccur for others."
The nurse said she had been warned "to be careful of the personalities" when she joined the department, but the venom shown by some established staff left her shocked. She said she knew of two other nurses who had left quickly after similar experiences in the last few months.
"There was bullying, harassment, verbal violence, swearing at the top of their voices, saying things like 'You stupid f ... ing cow' in the middle of ED. It was nurses doing it. I'm just disgusted."
The level of care also shocked the complainant nurse. One patient was left lying in her own urine with her dried vomit on her face, hair, gown and bed linen.
Ms Dixon said the nurse responsible for that had been "spoken to".
"I assure you this is not normal practice within the department."
Approached for comment, Mr Rousseau accepted the behaviour was inappropriate.
"You're going to get small areas of blow-out every now and then.
"You're going to get differences in small groups of staff.
"Emergency departments, in the best of times, are a stressful place to work. Occasionally you are going to get staff who act in a way you and I would say to be inappropriate.
"We don't condone that ... and we also believe that we shouldn't tolerate it."
Asked what had been done to address the nurse's complaints since August, chief nursing officer Teresa Bradfield said workshops were begun immediately after the complaints.
" This is about changing behaviour - it's not something you can do in one meeting."
- Otago Daily Times
