A new survey of 186 nurses and care staff at Christchurch’s Hillmorton Hospital has revealed a disturbing picture of overworked staff too scared to speak out about the state of the facility, NZNO says.
Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO delegate and Hillmorton nurse Sarah Jane Perkin says understaffing is at the heart of many of the issues raised by the NZNO members in the survey.
"Four out of five - or 80% - of the nurses and care workers surveyed felt unsafe at work because of understaffing during the past month.
"This is evidenced in Te Whatu Ora’s own data for 2025 which shows the Whaikaha forensic ward at Hillmorton was staffed below safe levels 1000 shifts - or 91% of all shifts - and a further eight wards at the mental health hospital were unsafely staffed above or close to almost half of all shifts.
"Other survey findings include nine out of 10 staff - or 89% - said they had recently had to work with broken or faulty equipment.
"Staff described broken heaters, peeling wallpaper, graffiti, worn and stained carpet soaked in urine, infestations of ants, rats and mice, building leaks, broken panels in lounge areas and patient room doors getting jammed.
"Of even more concern is that staff also described cameras not working, security doors that don’t lock or close properly, malfunctioning duress alarms, delayed alarm responses and blind spots where patients climb up walls and fences," Sarah Jane Perkin says.
"Nurses have a professional duty to immediately raise and escalate concerns about patient safety or compromised care standards. However, just over half - 52% - of the workers surveyed felt unable to raise concerns without fear of blame or retaliation. A further third - 32% - reported sometimes feeling unable to safely raise concerns.
"Sadly nearly nine out of 10 workers - 87% - reported negative impacts on their wellbeing from working at Hillmorton. One third reported experiencing burnout, and a further third reported feeling constant stress and anxiety," Sarah Jane Perkin says.
The survey results prompted NZNO to write to the Ministry of Health to raise its serious concerns about Hillmorton and associated mental health services which are the subject of a monitoring programme under Section 99 of the Mental Health Act.
Section 99 enables the Director of Mental Health Dr John Crawshaw to inspect any hospital or facility where psychiatric treatment is provided in response to serious events or safety concerns.
NZNO delegate and Hillmorton nurse Gabrielle Nolan says NZNO Hillmorton members are calling for Te Whatu Ora to address the issues raised in the survey.
"We would like to see Te Whatu Ora resource baseline rosters to ensure safe staffing, stop using redeployment to plug roster gaps, establish workforce planning for early career nurses, immediately fix maintenance and equipment issues, and set up an anonymous reporting system for staff concerns," Gabrielle Nolan says.
Quotes from the survey:
I’ve worked shifts where there are panels missing from walls on the unit, ripped vinyl peeling off the walls due to patient damage, buckets on the floor to collect the water that is leaking from the ceiling. Flickering lights due to electrical issues. Doors not closing properly and having to be slammed shut to secure them. Windows not fixed and constantly remaining open causing temperature issues. Water taps not working in patient rooms. This is our ward constantly. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone to be admitted to our ward. The physical environment is anything but healing (RN, Te Whare Manaaki, Hillmorton Hospital).
Working at Hillmorton has an impact on my personal health. I am a more anxious and tearful person than I was before I started. I experienced burnout within months of working there. I went into mental health nursing because I care about people, but the level of care we are able to provide feels substandard. I constantly feel moral and ethical conflict, knowing that the treatment our tangata whai ora receive is often harmful and traumatising (RN, Acute Inpatients, Hillmorton).
Moral injury, for me, shows up when I know what good care looks like but don’t have the resources to provide it. There have been shifts where patients were clearly distressed and needed time, therapeutic engagement, and consistent boundaries, but staffing and skill mix meant my focus had to be on safety and containment rather than care. Instead of time, presence, and de-escalation, medication becomes the default intervention... Knowing that a patient needed more than I could give - and that this may contribute to them returning in crisis - is deeply uncomfortable and stays with me after the shift ends (RN, Te Awakura, Hillmorton Hospital)
When you have such limited time, it is the patients that end up being neglected and missing out. Being able to provide good care to the children I look after is really important to me. Shifts like these I often apologise to my patients for not having enough time for them and spend my shift in a state of chaos and intense guilt. Children shouldn't miss out on quality mental health care because the adults in political power don't care about nurses, patients, and safe staffing (RN, Ngā Kakano, Hillmorton Hospital).
I’ve been a registered nurse for two years now, and I’m burnt out. I want to make a career of this but I’m at a loss of how to do that in a broken system… There’s a couple wards I can think of where they have high staff turnover and it’s simply because staff are feeling super overwhelmed, unsupported and they value their safety more than this job. Some of my friends have moved to different hospitals or even moved to Australia for better working conditions and I don’t blame them. But I want to stick it out here because I strongly feel both staff and patients deserve better. How many more section 99 reports and Coroners Court investigations following murders and suicides need to happen in order for the Ministry of Health to wake up and listen to us on the frontline? (RN, Te Awakura - North Inpatients, Hillmorton Hospital).