WorkSafe has served an improvement notice on the Auckland children's hospital. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
A former highly skilled healthcare worker at a Starship Hospital unit caring for abused children says it has become a lesser service, due to "crippling" bullying.
On Wednesday, RNZ revealed WorkSafe had put an improvement notice on Te Puaruruhua at Starship in Auckland, with a deadline of 22 October.
The unit was the country's first child abuse treatment centre, set up in 1990, and gives 24-hour care to abused children in some of the most serious cases.
"We work with children who've experienced trauma," the former employee said. "We need to be the calm in the chaos, but many of us were crumbling from the abuse."
RNZ agreed not to name her to protect her privacy. The ex-employee quit, saying she witnessed a service being eroded.
"I saw a service that had taken years to develop, and something that was outstanding and reputable and safe, eroded to something that was very different, that did have what I experienced as a toxic culture of lack of safety and bullying, [and] certainly an undermining of work that was being engaged in.
"These are the children who are needing people to be safe and engaging and stable themselves. These are the children who were, I think, getting less of a service, because of what was going on."
Complaints dated back to 2022. Documents RNZ has obtained charted repeated pleas to Health NZ to act.
On Monday, Health NZ stated it was well under way strengthening its systems.
In its April improvement notice, Worksafe said the unit lacked systems for identifying and controlling psychosocial risks to the staff.
Behind closed doors, more than a dozen nurses and doctors lodged complaints with Worksafe late last year and early this year, triggering an inspection in March and legal intervention in April.
In the run-up, three out of seven senior medical officers quit, due to bullying, the ex-staffer said.
In the end, she quit too, feeling "broken".
"I left under an incredible cloud of abuse, bullying. I could not, after two years, of it manage it anymore. I had certainly lost my confidence.
The service dealt with "abuse and neglect and sexual assault and shaken babies".
"When there's only four of those paediatricians or senior medical officers available - there's now no kaumatua, there's no kai āwhina [support worker], there's no psychologist - this has become a very different service and that's my biggest, not distress, but sadness that I feel.
"It's a lesser service. I think it's been significantly detrimental to the children."
She talked of a "climate of fear", echoed in documents RNZ has seen, where two unions, for nurses and senior doctors repeatedly asked Health NZ for action.
The Nurses Organisation union said staff cared so much about the work, they were very afraid that going public would ruin the unit.
"Even on my last day, I was threatened about defamation," the former employee said about how HNZ advised her against speaking up, even after she left.
"People didn't want to speak up. People were frightened and it was very much, 'Deal with it within yourself'."
RNZ has seen an email - sent on Tuesday as it made inquiries - from a Starship director to staff saying: "If you are approached by media for comment, please do not respond and refer queries to our communications team as per usual, and let me know."
The healthcare worker said the area was really tough to work in, so staff needed care themselves.
"The people who do the work need to be solid and stable, and well experienced.
"When this work that is so difficult is not being validated, and supported and affirmed from the top, then the bottom crumbles."
"In my experience, we ended up replicating the very situations that we were trying to deal with, that of trauma and abuse and neglect.
"We were told not to talk, not even to each other. There were many, many tears shed.
"There were many nights that people just couldn't return to work the next day."
However, Te Puaruruhau was an "incredible service" and would rebuild.
Health NZ responds
Health NZ Starship director Dr Greg Williams said Te Puaruruhau delivered critical and high-quality services.
"We deeply value the people who work there.
"We are committed to providing a safe, respectful workplace, and have taken a range of actions in response to staff concerns and the resulting improvement notice issued by WorkSafe. This includes addressing issues raised, strengthening staff support and improving pathways for raising concerns.
"Additional health and safety representatives have been appointed, psychosocial risk workshops have been delivered and an updated psychosocial risk framework is now under staff review.
"We're working closely with WorkSafe to meet all requirements of the improvement notice on time. Bullying and harassment have no place in any of our services."
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