Newshub can reveal assaults on health staff have more than doubled in a year and one nurse says it's forcing some to consider leaving the industry.
As an after-hours supervisor, Nathan Clarke knows how tough it is to work in hospital emergency departments, where patients are in pain and distress, and staff are run off their feet.
And yet, Clarke is one of many nurses who've been assaulted while just doing their job. He suffered a head injury and a concussion.
"Initially, you go into survival mode," the Wellington-based nurse told Newshub.
"I dealt with the situation, checked on my colleagues, made sure they were all right, and then I just continued on at work because I had a job to do."
Data provided to Newshub via written parliamentary questions from ACT show it's happening more often. Assaults on Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand staff are up 135 percent compared to last year.
In the first three months of 2022, 455 assaults were recorded. In the following three months, there were 875. The number rose to 900 from July to September, until reaching 1180 in the final three months of the year. In the first three months of 2023, 1354 assaults occurred.
Te Whatu Ora's chief people officer Andrew Slater said the organisation is aware of the increased violence.
"Our people are telling us that they're experiencing more violence than what they have previously on the front-line," he told Newshub.
ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden said it's not good enough.
"Te Whatu Ora has to do better for people who are working hard in our hospitals to save lives to make sure people are safe when they do their jobs," she told Newshub.
The health workforce is already under pressure, and Clarke said some of his colleagues are now considering leading the nursing industry.
"Initially, it used to just be the odd bit of shouting at staff," the registered nurse told Newshub.
"But it's very much progressing now towards physical assault, throwing of objects, staff being spat at, staff being physically and verbally threatened, to the extent that we've had to escort staff to vehicles after work because they've had threats against them that people are going to wait for them."
Some of the examples of abuse towards health staff are shocking. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation - the union that represents nurses - has revealed a mental health nurse in Auckland asked a patient to stop vaping and was punched in the head until she passed out.
The union says the nurse has not returned to work since.
Police told Newshub a 24-year-old woman was charged with assault and last month pleaded guilty at the Manukau District Court.
The nurses union said examples like that add to the already relentless pressure of staff shortages.
"If we have the resources and the staff to get our jobs done, we can move people through, get people seen sooner, and get people on their way," Clarke told Newshub.
Te Whatu Ora acknowledges that staffing is an issue.
"Certainly, we hear from our people that it is contributing to it," Slater told Newshub.
"However, I can assure our people that every day my colleagues and I are looking at how we bring as much workforce in as possible."
Slater said Te Whatu Ora has about 800 security staff across the country, but the organisation is now looking at boosting security - something the nurses union has been calling for.
"When we hear from our frontline people that we need to make changes in this area, it's a key focus of mine and my colleagues to make sure that we respond to that."
