The long awaited 200-page report, He Ara Oranga, was released in early December and acknowledges that the current mental health and addiction system is “under severe pressure and unsustainable” and significant investment was needed to work towards resolving the workforce crisis.
But the report was released in a week where there have been several reports of mental health nurses being injured by patients, and workforce bodies are calling for prompt and decisive action on the report’s recommendations. The Government is due to formally respond to the report in March in the lead-up to the 2019 Budget being announced in May.
NZNO President Grant Brookes said many of the issues raised by NZNO in its submission to the Inquiry had been addressed, but there remained some “concerning gaps”.
Andy Colwell, the convenor of the Public Service Association’s Mental Health and Addiction Committee which represents many mental health nurses, said the clock was now ticking because, as the report noted, mental health workers and others had been waiting long enough for change.
“It is important to note that this report puts a spotlight on escalating demand for specialist services, limited support for people in the community and difficulties recruiting and retaining staff,” said Colwell. “As the panel has concluded, this is a system that is under pressure – and I would add a system where staff safety is being put at risk every day.”
Brookes said NZNO appreciated the people-centred nature of the report and its willingness to apply fresh thinking to old and complex problems. However, he added, there was nothing in the recommendations to address current workforce wellbeing issues, including increasing incidences of violence towards staff.
“Nurses, whether in the community or in hospitals, are essential. They’re at the forefront in treating mental health and addiction, but we know the mental health and addiction nursing workforce is becoming more tired, fearful and burnt out.
“That makes it a difficult branch of nursing to recruit to. So if we fail to plan for a nursing workforce that is robustly resourced, safe in the workplace and fully staffed, then many of the Inquiry’s other recommendations will come to nothing.
He agreed that the report was a “once in a generation opportunity” and with Health Minister David Clark’s statement that reshaping New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction was no small task that would take some time.
“We think so too, and urge the Government to begin work on a plan to address mental health and addiction needs in New Zealand without delay – and this must include nursing workforce issues.”
NZNO Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said she welcomes the report’s focus on strengthening Kaupapa Māori services.
“NGOs and Kaupapa Māori services play a vital role in providing culturally appropriate responses and supporting whānau in the community.
“Removing barriers short-term contracting costs and streamlining funding would make these services more sustainable and ensure that the workforce in this sector is well supported.”
Nuku said NGOs and Kaupapa Māori services form a key part of the ‘whole of government’ approach to wellbeing and that Government must support their development.
The NZNO pair said the organisation looked forward to continuing to work with the Government and other stakeholders to help bring about the changes recommended in the report.
]]>Now she is calling for an independent investigation on the safety of the Hillmorton Hospital facilities.
The nurse, who works at the adult mental health facility in Christchurch, suffered second-degree burns to the upper left side of her chest and arm when a female patient poured boiling water on to her while she was in a nurses’ station room.
Charges are unlikely to be laid and the patient remains at Hillmorton.
The incident happened about two weeks ago at the hospital; which has been plagued with several incidents involving nurses being injured.
Last Sunday, another nurse was stabbed with what is understood to have been surgical scissors.
Yesterday, police were called out to the unit after a staff member was assaulted and needed hospital treatment.
Police said the person was injured after being punched.
Speaking to the Weekend Herald, the burned nurse described the terrifying wait she had to endure immediately after the incident.
“I was delayed in getting treatment for my burns because there is only one door in the nurses’ station,” she said.
“After the patient had thrown the boiling water on me, she blocked the doorway.
“There was no way for me to leave to get help or first aid until the nursing staff came and moved the patient.”
The lack of exits has been an ongoing concern for nurses, she said, and they had requested that another door be created in the nurses’ station.
They were told it would be too expensive to install one, she said.
“A year ago, a patient pushed a couch in front of the door, blocking it, then set it on fire.
“The nurse had no escape. She wasn’t hurt because our nursing team are fantastic. We have to be.
Canterbury DHB chief executive David Meates said he was “shocked to see the extent of the injuries” caused by the boiling water and assured the Weekend Herald a review was being carried out and changes had already been made.
“A re-design of the High Care Area office area to allow emergency egress has been identified as urgently required. Options for a practical solution are yet to be scoped, so we don’t yet know how feasible it is to add an extra door. The issue is not one of cost but whether it can be done from a practical point of view,” he said.
The nurse said she was the second person to suffer burns from having boiling water thrown at them by a patient.
As a result of the first incident, the temperature on a hot water zip machine was changed in that particular ward – but not in the others, the nurse said.
“They knew there was a serious risk and hazard to both staff and patients but failed to correct it. Very few other hospitals allow zips on the wards for this reason.”
Since the attack, the zip machines had been disabled, Meates said.
Speaking up about patient-on-nurse violence was not about making it out to be a divisive patients versus nurses issue, she said.
Instead, nurses wanted the public to know what was happening in the mental health system and for those in management positions to hear their calls for better safety measures in wards.
She said the nurses dealt with violence on a daily basis as well as occasionally with patients who had bought drugs from other patients.
They also had to deal with having to face a patient who had earlier assaulted them, been charged by police, then sent back to Hillmorton.
In last week’s stabbing case, the 42-year-old charged with intent to injure has since been remanded back to the facility.
“I believe it is unacceptable to use hospitals as a place to leave remand prisoners,” she said.
Meates said high demand made it difficult to place patients back in different areas after an assault.
“Wherever possible a patient will be brought back to a different part of the unit, or a different service if appropriate, or we can try to find an alternative place for the staff member to work, but this isn’t always possible,” he said.
Among her recommendations were to bring in dedicated security staff on wards.
“It is very hard to build a therapeutic and healing relationship with patients when days before you may have had to restrain them due to a drug-induced psychotic event where they are hurting themselves and other patients.
“Patient-on-patient violence is an almost daily occurrence on the wards and sometimes nurses feel more like prison guards than the caring and concerned nurses we are.”
She said that in Australia, security guards were posted on wards so that dangerous behaviour was dealt with swiftly and nurses could focus on doing their job.
“The mental health system and current facilities and policies are hurting everyone involved and now we need to come together to fight for change.”
As of yesterday, two extra secuity staff would be on duty in the acute inpatient unit around the clock, Meates said.
The attacks come as the Report of the Government Inquiry to Mental Health and Addiction was released this week. One of its recommendations was the need to implement a national suicide prevention strategy.
Canterbury District Health Board chief David Meates met with mental health nurses at Hillmorton to discuss safety concerns.
In a statement he said he was extremely concerned about the latest assaults on staff and that a review will be carried out to understand the circumstances and also what could be done to reduce the chance of a recurrence.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation say two recent assaults on mental health nurses at Hillmorton Hospital are more than a wake-up call to the Canterbury DHB and WorkSafe that urgent action is needed.
A DHB spokeswoman confirmed on Sunday that a nurse had been stabbed in the leg at an acute mental health unit at Hillmorton Hospital. The same unit where last a month a nurse had a cup of boiling water thrown over her. A report also emerged this week of an attack on a mental health nurse in Hawke’s Bay last month. Nurses this year have also been talking about the impact of P and synthetic cannabis use leading to growing violence against staff.
NZNO Organiser John Miller said it was “absolutely unacceptable” for anyone to feel scared to go to work because they could be stabbed, burned, beaten, punched or strangled.”Surely this is going to negatively affect the quality of the care they can give.
He said NZNO had been working for some time to support security, safety and good practice environments for it members at CDHB including being involved in working party recommendations to CDHB on employing security guards and urgently funding and pursuing improved practice environments to make inpatient settings safer.
“CDHB’s acute mental health services has been under pressure for some time with an increase in acute mental health presentations which require modern safer in-patients facilities to be developed and funded. This must be given high priority.”
It is understood that up to 50 Hillmorton mental health staff met with Canterbury DHB chief executive David Meates on Monday December 3
Meates said in a statement on the evening of December 3 that he had an open and honest conversation with mental health nursing staff at the meeting which reflected the “long and sustained pressure” that the service faced.
“Our mental health services are under significant pressure and this is impacting not only the care we provide our consumers but the safety of our staff,” he said. “The service is currently caring for twice the volume of patients than prior to the Canterbury earthquakes with the same number of beds and in inadequate facilities.”
He said of the key areas discussed included options for managing specific patient groups and strengthening some of the DHB’s processes. “We discussed the very real constraints of our current facilities and the impact on staff of feeling unsafe in their workplace.”
Meates said staff also presented options including increasing the security presence on the site. “It’s fundamental to the care of our consumers that our staff feel safe and supported to do their jobs,” he said. A further staff meeting was to be held on Friday and two more next week.
Miller said NZNO was also calling on WorkSafe to step up and take an urgent proactive approach to violence in the workplace for all health workers.
“Where is WorkSafe’s involvement in all this? We know WorkSafe has had serious assault reports from CDHB’s Specialist Mental Health Services, and there have been more than enough publicly reported incidents that should be triggering WorkSafe’s involvement.”
Meates also confirmed that he was to meet on December 6 with health and safety regulator WorkSafe at the agency’s request.
The latest incidents at Hillmorton follows a series of assaults in March on nurses working at Hillmorton’s Assessment, Treatment and Rehabilitation (AT&R) unit, which cares for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviours. The unit is due to be redeveloped and modernised.
]]>Hawke’s Bay Today understands the nurse, who works on the mental health ward at Hawke’s Bay Hospital, was injured by a patient on November 18.
A Hawke’s Bay District Health Board spokeswoman said they had launched an investigation into how the event occurred, and notified police.
“The staff member sustained an injury, received prompt treatment and is now recovering well at home.”
The spokesperson declined to comment further.
Executive Director of Provider Services Colin Hutchison said his focus was on making sure the support for both the staff member and patient was in place.
“Our team has met with our colleague, patient and family on a number of occasions, since the incident.
“We are pleased to report that the staff member is recovering and the patient is continuing to receive appropriate care.”
Issues similar to this one have been hitting the headlines recently.
On Sunday, a nurse at Christchurch’s Hillmorton Hospital was stabbed, just days after another nurse had boiling water poured over her at the same facility.
The stabbing incident led to the arrest of a 42-year-old man who was charged with injuring with intent to injure.
He was due to appear in the Christchurch District Court today.
It is understood police have yet to lay any charges in relation to the boiling water incident.
From January to July this year, there were 62 cases of physical and verbal abuse of Hawke’s Bay DHB staff reported, and more than half of those (36) were directed at registered nurses.
]]>A Canterbury District Health Board spokesperson confirmed the attack took place in an acute mental health unit at the DHB’s Hillmorton Hospital over the weekend.
The Florence Smith nursing Facebook page posted graphic photos of the burns and said the nurse was writing notes in the nurses station when the boiling water was thrown at her, causing second-degree burns and “future scarring, not to mention emotional trauma”.
“When questioned why, the patient shrugged their shoulders,” the post said.
“She could be your daughter, your wife, your sister, your friend. She is a nurse and there is no excuse. Ever!”
The DHB spokesperson said the nurse was doing well and was in a comfortable condition.
“We are carrying out a thorough investigation into what happened and the circumstances in the unit at that time and will continue to support the staff member with their recovery,” they said.
“Specialist Mental Health Services takes all incidents of violence seriously. No level of violence towards staff, patients, or anyone else is acceptable.
“We are taking action to reduce the risk of violence within our service. For example, the Specialist Mental Health Service is working on a project with the New Zealand Nurses Organisation to support a safe and sustainable acute inpatient service.
“The project aims to address assaults and threats, and is looking at ways to proactively and systematically prevent, de-escalate and manage aggressive behaviour.
“The project is also reviewing leadership roles and crisis admission procedures, and taking steps to create a more calming and therapeutic environment.”
The weekend’s incident was not the first serious assault at the hospital this year.
In March, a nurse was “beaten senseless”, another’s finger was bitten “to the bone” and a third nurse was hit on the jaw during an assault at Hillmorton Hospital.
The three nurses, from the mental health clinic in Christchurch, ended up in the emergency department after the assault by a patient in a drug-induced psychosis.
A health and safety review was put in place at Hillmorton Hospital in October 2017 after earlier reports of staff being bitten, hit, and injured.
Between January and October last year there were 11 ACC workplace injury claims for staff working in the assessment, treatment and rehabilitation unit.
Four people were also injured after a patient lit a fire at the hospital in December.
Ministry of Health acting chief nursing officer Jane Bodkin said the safety and wellbeing of nurses and other health workers was extremely important and was the joint responsibility of individuals and the organisations they were employed by.
“We are very concerned about the rise internationally, and in New Zealand, of violence against health sector workers and welcome moves to work together to improve safe staffing and healthy workplaces.”
]]>Voting closed at the end of last week with PSA members voting to back the deal which by 2020 will deliver a new top base salary of $77,386 for inpatient nurses and $83,712 for community nurses. A pay equity claim for PSA’s more than 3000 nurse members is also to be negotiated during the new agreement’s term.
The deal also includes escalation pathways for reporting and managing acute short staffing, a reinforcement of the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy on violence in the workplace and a commitment to reasonable workloads. But PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk said it was still looking forward to receiving the recommendations of the Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry and “much bolder steps towards addressing systemic, longstanding workload and staffing issues at the national level”.
Ashok Shankar, a DHB national organiser and bargaining advocate for the PSA, said the turnout to ratification meetings was ‘okay’ probably due to the long lead-in time and members being reasonably happy with the offer which 91 per cent of Auckland voters and 94 per cent of the ‘rest of New Zealand’ voters supported.
Polaczuk said the deal was significant for its members who worked “aboveand beyond the call of duty to provide health services under frequently difficult and stressful circumstances” as it included provision for PSA and management to agree to minimum numbers of staff in a workplace to provide safe and effective care. Also for an escalation process when additional staff are not available to as to protect both workers and patients.
Shankar said the union now had to sit down and talk with the parties and agree the best process for negotiating a pay equity claim with the DHBs’ now having accepted claims from NZNO, the midwifery union MERAS and PSA for the nursing and midwifery professions. Currently DHB registered nurses and midwives are on the same pay scale but MERAS, which represents the vast majority of DHB midwives, is currently urging its members to reject a DHB deal based on the NZNO offer saying midwives are not ‘nurses by another name’. MERAS also says the DHB has agreed to pay equity claims to be negotiated on an occupation by occupation basis.
DHB PSA mental health and public health nurse pay offer
- The main MECA expired a year ago and the new contract would expire in 2020 – so the offer covers a three year period
- 3 x 3% increase for all members – the first backdated to July 2, the second backdated to September 3 and the third in June next year
- Two new pay steps on the current five step inpatient mental health nurse pay scale with the new step 7 of $77,386 coming into effect on June 1 2020
- One new step on the enrolled nurse nurse pay scale and one new merit step on the mental health assistant pay scale in June 2019
- The top step of the eight step community mental health and public health nurse pay scale will increase in June 2019 from current $74,377 to $83,712
- The top steps of the designated senior nurse salary scale will increase by a further 3% in 2019 resulting in a senior salary scale range of $79,760 to $130,653
- An agreement to work in partnership with DHBs and other union partners to negotiate a pay equity process for all members within the term of the MECA.
But PSA national secretary Erin Polaczuk said it was hopeful that the recommendations of the Mental Health Inquiry – due to be delivered to the Government by the end of this month – would tackle these issues “head-on” and provide workable solutions that could be implemented “almost immediately”.
Voting starts next week on the DHBs offer to PSA nurses which mirrors the precedent-setting settlement between the 20 district health boards and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation made in early August after difficult and drawn-out negotiations. The offer to the about 3,500 mental health and public health nurses and mental health support worker members of the Public Service Association includes an agreement to work with the DHBs and ‘other union partners’ on a pay equity process for all members covered by the PSA nurse multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) with an implementation timeframe yet to be decided.
Polaczuk said the offer included financial recognition but issues such as short staffing remain.
“PSA members have regularly raised the issues around insufficient staffing and its impact on the quality of patient care and staff wellbeing. For far too long our mental health and public health nurses have faced unsustainable workloads and unsafe working environments.”
Ashok Shankar, a DHB national organiser and bargaining advocate for the PSA, said the the mental health sector continues to have major problems to fill existing nurse vacancies. He said pay increases may help attract more back to the sector but the sector could still face difficulties as there didn’t seem to the numbers out there to actually recruit.
The new MECA pay offer includes a commitment to the safe staffing and joint NZNO-DHBs Care Capacity Demand Management (CCDM) process. “We’ve also agreed to a process of engaging with the DHBs workplace by workplace to determine the number of staff needed to nurse safely. And an escalation process to deal with workloads when they reach an unsafe level.”
Violence and assaults on particularly mental health nurses have been an ongoing serious concern raised by nurses this year. A petition started by Nurse Florence, prompted by the assault this winter of a Christchurch mental health nurse, lists some of the violence nurses have been subject to in the workplace including broken bones, attempted strangulation, and being knocked unconscious.
Shankar said the MECA did have a clause on workplace violence and aggression including a process on dealing with that.
Ratification meetings are due to start on Monday October 8 and finish on October 26.
The first of the PSA nursing multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) – covering all of the country except the Auckland region – expired on September 30 last year and the Auckland MECA expired in mid-December. The two PSA nursing MECAs cover workforces with a current combined annual payroll of around $217 million.
DHB PSA mental health and public health nurse pay offer
- The main MECA expired a year ago and the new contract would expire in 2020 – so the offer covers a three year period
- 3 x 3% increase for all members – the first backdated to July 2, the second backdated to September 3 and the third in June next year
- Two new pay steps on the current five step inpatient mental health nurse pay scale with the new step 7 of $77,386 coming into effect on June 1 2020
- One new step on the enrolled nurse nurse pay scale and one new merit step on the mental health assistant pay scale in June 2019
- The top step of the eight step community mental health and public health nurse pay scale will increase in June 2019 from current $74,377 to $83,712
- The top steps of the designated senior nurse salary scale will increase by a further 3% in 2019 resulting in a senior salary scale range of $79,760 to $130,653
- An agreement to work in partnership with DHBs and other union partners to negotiate a pay equity process for all members within the term of the MECA.
They are mostly men, and there is often a crossover (sometimes referred to as dual diagnosis, or co-existing problems [CEP]) between mental health and addictions.
These stars either self-medicated with alcohol or drugs to cope with depression/anxiety or, conversely, their addiction/drug experiences triggered off depression, anxiety and even psychosis.
But away from the headlines, there are plenty of ordinary, non-famous people also doing this to cope with everyday life.
Male/female numbers evening up
With New Zealand’s sky-high suicide rate dominated by men (three-quarters of the 606 suicides last year were male), it seems plausible to conclude that they are also more likely to self-medicate than women to cope with depression/anxiety.
Waikato addiction nurse practitioner Louise Leonard says that, 15 years ago, this was perhaps true but, these days, women have caught up with men.
The number of bed admissions to the medical detox centre where she works is roughly equal, she says.
“We used to say men were more vulnerable and that men were often self-medicating… but I think women have caught up. Families are under pressure, and it’s impacting equally.”
Professor Doug Sellman, a clinical psychiatrist who is director of Otago University’s National Addiction Centre, says self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs can seem to offer those with experience of depression and/or anxiety an easy, albeit temporary, fix.
“If you’re low and getting up to normal, that’s self-medication and if you’re normal and going up to high that’s more social, recreational use.”
Nowadays health professionals recognise it is common for patients to have both mental health and addiction problems, says Leonard, who prefers the term ‘co-existing problems’.
True ‘dual diagnosis’ would involve a full-blown diagnosis, so meeting criteria according to a diagnostic manual for mental health and drug and alcohol addiction, she says.
“These days we know that most people who present have mental health and addiction problems, so they may not be at a level that they necessarily will have a diagnosis but it’s causing problems in both domains.”
Sellman says a “well-thought-out clinical interview” should be able to identify what the primary problem is.
There are a number of key steps to go through and he advocates a trial period of abstinence in the first instance. “Three-quarters of [the depression/anxiety] will go away [during the abstinence], but a quarter of it doesn’t”.
“Those are people who do have a more underlying depression/anxiety problem being primarily caused by some other factor.”
Looking at family history can provide clues to whether there is a stronger family history of depression/anxiety or one of alcoholism.
It is an “inexact science”, he admits, and the best and most proactive option is a period of abstinence.
In 2007 the Te Pou report on dual diagnosis concluded that mental health and alcohol and drug services in New Zealand did not reflect an integrated approach to services for people with experience of both mental illness and alcohol and drug addiction.
More than a decade later, a frequent criticism of the health system is that people with both issues are falling through the gap.
National inquiry underway
A national mental health and addiction inquiry is currently underway to investigate this, with a six-person panel of experts making 25 visits to towns and cities across the country. Its findings won’t be heard until after it wraps up in October. However, inquiry chair, Professor Ron Paterson, was recently reported as saying that one of the common themes of the meetings so far was that mental health and addiction services are often fragmented.
Doug Sellman and Louise Leonard feel things are improving for people with CEP.
Sellman first identified people ‘falling through the gap’ more than three decades ago when he started studying this area. Since then things have improved, he says.
“I think there is greater awareness amongst mental health clinicians, of these secondary conditions, that alcohol and other drugs can produce psychiatric symptoms that look exactly like the primary diagnosis like major depression or a manic episode or a psychotic condition.
“There is [also] greater awareness now amongst clinicians in the addiction sector of the reality of primary disorders, that you can have these two co-existing, but there will be these 25 per cent of people who, even with abstinence, will continue to have these symptoms and they’re going to need other forms of treatment.
“There’s greater acceptance and awareness of that. So I think it’s slowly improving, over time.”
Services “are stretched”, admits Leonard, particularly as people are presenting with “more and more complex issues”.
“I always say to clients, to patients, that it’s a matter of hanging in there. If you’re determined, you will be seen, you will be properly assessed, you will have a treatment plan developed, but these things don’t necessarily happen overnight.”
But she agrees that there’s more understanding among health professionals about both issues.
“These days we have the view that any door is the right door, that’s easier said than done but whether you’re presenting to a mental health service or a drug and alcohol service you should still eventually end up in the right place.
“Services have got better and clinicians have become more skilled at recognising both, but we’re certainly not in a perfect world.”
Crucially people presenting with these issues need the help of an advocate.
“Families can’t do it for you [but] whether it’s their family, or a friend or whoever, they need someone to be supporting them as they present for treatment and not going away, being determined. I think it’s that persistence that helps.”
Both Leonard and Sellman say that, for anyone seeking help with CEP, the best place to start is with their GP.
“In the majority of cases, it’s good advice,” says Sellman. “These days GPs are being better trained in this area and know when to refer, and can do that initial sorting things out – ‘what’s the likelihood of this being a primary mental health problem or a primary alcohol or drug addiction’.”
It’s crucial to encourage people to get past any shame or embarrassment they might feel about their addictions or mental health issues, adds Leonard. “Often that’s why people don’t present for help, people just battle on and try and cope.”
Where to get help:
If you are worried about your or someone else’s mental health, the best place to get help is your GP or local mental health provider. However, if you or someone else is in danger or endangering others, call police immediately on 111.
Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.
Or if you need to talk to someone else:
Lifeline – 0800 543 354
Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Youthline – 0800 376 633 or free text 234
Kidsline – 0800 54 37 54 (for under 18s)
What’s Up – 0800 942 8787 (for 5–18 year olds 1pm–10pm weekdays and 3pm–10pm weekends)
Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202
Samaritans – 0800 726 666
OUTLine NZ – 0800 688 5463
Healthline – 0800 611 116
Source: Health Central
]]>The pay talks for around 3500 DHB mental health nurses, public health nurses and support workers belonging to the Public Service Association got underway last year but were one of a number of talks stalled by the protracted negotiations between the 20 DHBs and NZNO.
Details of the offer are still to be released but it is understood to be similar to the precedent-setting offer accepted in early August by the NZNO’s DHB members. That offer was for a lump sum payment plus the equivalent of a 3 per cent pay increase per year, along with extra pay steps on the basic pay scales. It also included a stepped-up commitment to safe staffing and reaching a pay equity settlement ready to start implementing from the end of 2019.
Ashok Shankar,a PSA national organiser for the DHB sector, said ratification meetings were due to start around the country on Monday October 8 and the fine details of the offer would be available to members by Monday October 1.
He said it included a commitment from DHBs to pay equity for PSA nurses but the process was still to be sorted. Shankar pointed to the recent PSA negotiated $114m pay equity settlement for Oranga Tamariki social workers that will see an average lift in salaries of 30.6 per cent over a two-year period.
The first of the PSA nursing multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) – covering all of the country except the Auckland region – expired on September 30 last year and the Auckland MECA expired in mid-December. The two PSA nursing MECAs cover workforces with a current combined annual payroll of around $217 million.
]]>A free wellbeing kit that school-based mental health nurses helped develop for kids in post-quake Canterbury has been expanded after a positive evaluation.
Activities such as teaching children tummy breathing to calm them down and how to play ‘compliments tag’ were launched on the Sparklers toolkit website last year and received 10,000 hits in the first few months. Twenty new Sparklers activities have been added, bringing the total to 50, including 10 activities specific to Year 7 and 8 children that focus on topics such as working together, building friendships and understanding and regulating big emotions.
The seed for the project germinated back in 2014 when the school-based mental health team – set up by Canterbury DHB after the quakes – was approached by a school concerned about anxiety issues in a group of Year 3-4 children. A youth mental health nurse on the team, Michelle Cole, said they suggested teaching tummy breathing and the process of teaching teachers how to share tummy breathing with their class prompted the idea of more simple, ‘doable’ mental health interventions that could help teachers help students and also help nurses who work with children.
The Sparklers online kit was developed by All Right?, a joint initiative between Canterbury DHB and the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, and a positive evaluation involving five schools has just been completed and released.
It found that one school had introduced Sparklers’ activities across all classrooms as a way of helping students struggling with the transition into classroom activities after playtime and lunch breaks. “We did tummy breathing – after breaks we would lie down and we would tummy breathe for 10 or two minutes. It felt nice and it calmed us,” said one child interviewed during the evaluation.
The Sparklers activities can be viewed at www.sparklers.org.nz.
OTHER CHILD HEALTH BRIEFS
Link between time in green space and child health being researched
Researchers are investigating whether time spent by children and pregnant women in our lush outdoors could prevent adverse health conditions in New Zealand children.
The Massey University public health study is using Stats NZ data to follow a cohort of babies born in 1998 from the prenatal stage until they are 16 to 18 years old. Researchers look at where the babies or children live and satellite data is used to map the area and measure how much greenery or biodiversity is in the area.
The study breaks down the findings into time windows – prenatal, postnatal, early life and later in childhood – and determines which age bracket children get the most benefit from time spent in nature.
The hypothesis for the study came about from existing literature suggesting proximity to green spaces had health benefits.
“There’s one study, for instance, which is quite fascinating and started all this; it shows that people recovering from surgery who look out over green space recover more quickly than patients who don’t have those views,” said Massey University Professor Jeroen Douwes, the Director of the Centre for Public Health Research.
School children surrounded by unhealthy eating habits
School children are being bombarded by messages about unhealthy eating, a new study has revealed.
A three-year study by University of Auckland researchers has, for the first time, mapped the nation’s food environments and policies.The study analysed food composition, labelling, marketing and prices, as well as food in schools and retail outlets.
It found only 40 per cent of schools had a food policy, but even those that did were “weak and not comprehensive”. Over 90 per cent of schools used unhealthy food for fundraising and 42 per cent sold sugary drinks, the study found.
The survey found that within 500 metres of the school gate there were an average of 2.4 takeaway or convenience stores, and nine advertisements for unhealthy foods.
Research leader Professor Boyd Swinburn said people chose their diets from the food environments around them and when it was dominated by unhealthy foods and drinks it was no surprise that overall diets were unhealthy and obesity rates so high.
Lower socio-economic neighbourhoods had about three times as many takeaway and fast food outlets, more advertisements for unhealthy foods around schools, and more shelf space devoted to unhealthy foods in supermarkets.
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