A pregnant teenager had told her that she shared a bed with two teenage boys. The floor was littered with used needles and condoms, and there was a pile of used adult nappies and human excrement in the house, which did not have a toilet.
Few of us would have imagined that anyone in this country was living like that. Few of us would have any concept of such deprivation outside the Third World, an appalling degree of want on every level that passes all understanding in a so-called civilised, relatively wealthy society.
Where did Ms Hart-Murray see all this? In some remote, poverty-stricken community that social services - and the law - can't quite reach? No, it was at Middlemore Hospital, in Auckland, where the most compelling problems are supposedly rush-hour traffic and the cost of houses.
It is scandalous that such appalling destitution should exist in this country. It is inexcusable that some who have every right to share in all that this country can and does provide to the great majority should be ignored. And that's what's happening.
These people aren't some shameful secret that has never seen the light of day. They are not a lost tribe who have never had contact with 'civilised' society. They are New Zealanders, living in our biggest city, yet are, and must remain, invisible.
What was the response to these revelations? Did the DHB react with horror? Well, yes it did, but for the wrong reason. It did not admit that it had not been doing its job. It did not express remorse for failing these people, or dismay that these conditions exist here.
It did not invite Ms Hart-Murray to discuss how real help might be offered to these victims of an extraordinary lack of compassion or society's apparent inability to provide the most basic assistance to people in dire need.
It did none of those things. It simply told its former midwife to shut up. It told her to remove her Facebook post, for the most specious of reasons - that it may have breached patient confidentiality.
She has also been reported to the Midwifery Council, which, if it runs true to health authority form in this country, will at the very least censure her. It could also deprive her of her profession (although ill health prevents her from practising).
Ms Hart-Murray declined to elaborate on her concerns last week because of the DHB's complaint, but she did say she had been overwhelmed by responses from other midwives who had the same stories to tell.
This woman, it seems, is not alone in witnessing a shameful issue that should be addressed with the utmost urgency. She is only alone in having had the courage to speak about it.
The DHB's response, to take refuge in the privacy laws, is abominable, but sadly predictable. The board's concern is not that these conditions exist but that others will know of whom Ms Hart-Murray wrote on her Facebook page. Not you and me - anyone who does not know these people personally won't have a clue who they are.
The 'problem' is that other board employees, other health professionals, will recognise them.
So what exactly is the problem? These health professionals were already aware of these unfortunate people. Ms Hart-Murray told them nothing that they didn't already know. How did her going public breach their right to privacy?
The right to privacy means diddly squat to the people she was referring to. Privacy will be the least of the concerns for the pregnant teenager sharing a bed with two teenage boys and using the floor as a toilet.
These people can't eat their right to privacy. It does not educate them or give them the faintest shred of hope for any kind of future. In fact it harms them. It robs them of their only hope of escape.
The only thing that can help them is the public realisation that they exist, and the privacy laws are being used to prevent that.
This is a diabolical application of the law, a law that in this case guarantees that the most deprived among us do not get the help they desperately need. The Counties Manukau DHB should be utterly ashamed of itself.
It is behaving true to type though. This newspaper has, in the past, had great difficulty demanding any level of accountability from health authorities that have not done their job, because of the privacy laws.
One example involved a young child, a preschooler if memory serves, who suffered needlessly as a result of failure to diagnose and treat a twisted bowel in a timely fashion. Her mother waived her daughter's right to privacy so her story could be told, but that wasn't good enough.
The child herself had to waive her right, and given her age, that was problematic. Her story was told, but the people who had some serious questions to answer never answered them, because the law protected them.
Things have improved beyond recognition in Northland, if not in Counties Manukau; it's happening again at Middlemore, on a grand scale. If that is genuinely the fault of the privacy laws, then the laws need to change. There comes a point where spurious claims of confidentiality for patients cannot be accepted.
The DHB should have committed to at least bringing these people's desperate circumstances to political attention. It should be supporting its former midwife. It should have been demanding a comprehensive response from all manner of agencies long ago.
The fact that staff at Middlemore have been able to identify these victims of an extraordinary dereliction of duty proves that none of what Ms Hart-Murray has said comes as news to the hospital, if not the DHB. And what have they done about it? Nothing, apart from bestowing the right to privacy upon people who are suffering beyond comprehension.
The only support for Ms Hart-Murray so far seems to have come from Women's Health Action, who are encouraged by a health professional trying to shed light on the realities of life for some New Zealanders.
Good for them, but they won't win. The system will win. It's designed to. And to protect people who are not doing their job.
Ms Hart-Murray should get a medal, but her greatest reward will be if ordinary people in this country start standing up to these tyrannical bureaucrats and tell them to take their legislated suits of armour and shove them. If they don't know the right thing to do in this situation, they are no use to anyone.
