{"id":539051,"date":"2026-07-22T18:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539051\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:56:08","slug":"patient-suffers-spinal-fracture-amid-waitakere-hospital-staffing-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539051\/","title":{"rendered":"Patient suffers spinal fracture amid Wait\u0101kere Hospital staffing shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bethell believed the incident could have been avoided had her team been fully staffed and able to check patients regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try our best to keep people safe, but we are falling short of that target on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this gentleman now has a T-spine fracture that could have been prevented,\u201d she claimed.<\/p>\n

However, Health New Zealand\u2019s (HNZ) Waitemat\u0101 group director of operations, Brad Healy, said that when the man fell the ward was \u201cfully staffed\u201d, and there was additional support in place for patient watches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen staffing pressures arise, a range of escalation processes and staffing support options are available to help maintain safe patient care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During the morning shift last Monday, an extra nurse and healthcare assistant \u2013 known as a variance response team \u2013 had been deployed to help, but that afternoon they were then needed to cover gaps elsewhere in the hospital.<\/p>\n

HNZ\u2019s assurances of \u201cfully staffed\u201d shifts have not tempered frontline anxiety; some nurses have decided to walk off the job for an hour between 8am and 9am tomorrow over health and safety concerns. <\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us want to go this far, but it\u2019s getting worse and not better,\u201d Bethell said.<\/p>\n

An HNZ spokeswoman said 14 staff were rostered to be on duty during Friday\u2019s strike. Eight would stop work while the other six would keep working.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppropriate measures have been put in place to maintain safe patient care and essential services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The strike follows the Herald\u2019s reporting in May<\/a> where nurses warned of patients languishing in wet beds and being at risk of falls because of understaffing.<\/a><\/p>\n

After that story, managers met with staff, but Bethell said: \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen any practical outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forty staff signed a letter conveying issues with burnout and nurse-to-patient ratios, which was sent to HNZ chief executive Dale Bramley. He didn\u2019t respond, but a meeting with staff and chief nurse for the Waitemat\u0101 district, Kate Gilmour, was arranged.<\/p>\n

Neil Warrington, who has worked at Muriwai Ward for 23 years and is also an NZNO delegate, believed HNZ \u201cpassed the buck\u201d to Gilmour, who wasn\u2019t in a position to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Te Whatu Ora to stand up and take notice. We should not have to fight to keep patients safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NZNONZNO delegate Neil Warrington is disappointed with the lack of action from Health New Zealand after staff wrote to CEO Dale Bramley in May. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n

However, HNZ\u2019s spokeswoman pushed back on the suggestion that the agency had not acted since concerns were made public in May. She said that since then, two new healthcare assistants had started work on Muriwai Ward. <\/p>\n

She said 18 additional resource nurses had been recruited \u201cacross Waitemat\u0101<\/a>\u201d to help cover unplanned leave, and Muriwai had been \u201cprioritised for vacancy cover where available\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Herald asked HNZ why more nurses were not employed full time and rostered to each shift, given the ongoing concerns from staff at Muriwai Ward, but it didn\u2019t respond to that question.<\/p>\n

Warrington said his observations were that the situation had not improved and he\u2019d regularly speak to colleagues who were physically and mentally exhausted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are staff who have told me that when they go home, they sit down and they cry\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bethell, who\u2019s been a nurse 13 years, was now questioning whether she\u2019d chosen the right profession, and while she reluctantly spoke to the Herald, she felt it was important the views of staff were made clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should not be at 36 years old and thinking, \u2018Have I chosen the right thing to do with my life?\u2019 We need them [HNZ] to listen to us, and actually make changes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Michael Morrah<\/a> is a senior investigative reporter\/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named Reporter of the Year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald\u2019s video team in July 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethell believed the incident could have been avoided had her team been fully staffed and able to check…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3225,534,6326,1887,13989,67277,26885,134,527,10938,2241,111,139,9709,69,1597,5976,48782,41114,23747,44970,49191,6378,100598,57284],"class_list":["post-539051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-according","tag-amid","tag-biggest","tag-countrys","tag-fell","tag-fracture","tag-fractured","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-herald","tag-hospital","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nurses","tag-nz","tag-patient","tag-short","tag-shortages","tag-spinal","tag-spine","tag-spoke","tag-staffing","tag-suffers","tag-waitkere","tag-wards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}