A nurse-aide has gone on trial for assaults on "utterly defenceless" aged and frail hospital patients, most of them suffering from severe dementia.
Prosecutor Wendy Andrews warned a jury in the trial of Salote Koloi, which started in the Auckland District Court yesterday, that some evidence would be distressing.
"Some of these patients cried for their mummies and daddies when they were assaulted," she said.
In her opening statement, defence lawyer Mele Tuilotolava said the case came down to the credibility of Crown witnesses.
She said jealousy was a motivating factor.
"All up they were Tongan women and the workplace regularly saw arguments among these women."
Koloi pleaded not guilty when the 15 counts of assault were put to her.
The charges relate to seven complainants, some in their 80s or 90s when the alleged assaults were said to have happened at Cornwall Park Hospital in 2000 and 2001. Four have since died.
Ms Andrews said Koloi punched or slapped patients while on the night shift.
The court heard evidence of Koloi picking up one elderly patient by an arm and a leg and throwing the person on to a bed.
Ms Andrews said five of the patients were in an advanced state of dementia. They needed help with feeding, had no bladder or bowel control and they could not remember daily events.
When the alleged assaults happened they were utterly defenceless, she said.
Marjory Delaney, who is still a patient at the hospital, was aged 86 and 87 at the time. Koloi faces four charges, including one representative charge, of assaulting her.
Ms Andrews said Koloi had admitted to police that she assaulted two patients - one now deceased but aged between 49 and 50 at the time, and one aged 35 and 36, now living in Rotorua.
"[Koloi] instinctively slapped patients when they frustrated her."
Nurse-aide Tupou Tuitupou said she knew Koloi when she worked at the hospital. She mostly worked the 11pm to 7am shift, when a registered nurse and two nurse-aides, Koloi and herself, were on duty.
Mrs Tuitupou said she once saw Koloi slap Marjory Delaney three or four times on the top of her head.
"She was very unsettled. She was yelling 'help', help'," said Mrs Tuitupou.
Other patients were "crying like a baby". They whimpered or cried out "mummy, mummy".
Shona Read, now deceased but aged between 77 and 78 at the time, called out for her father after Koloi found her wandering early one morning.
Mrs Tuitupou said Koloi tied her to a chair, rolled up a bed sheet and used it to hit her on the face.
Under cross-examination from Ms Tuilotolava, Mrs Tuitupou said she did not report some of the incidents when the registered nurses had also seen them.
She was not asked to fill out any forms, and assumed the incidents were not being reported.
Mrs Tuitupou said she believed the incidents were not reported because the three registered nurses involved were either a relation of Koloi or good friends.
Under questioning from Ms Tuilotolava, she agreed she did not go to management because she thought she would not be believed.
When she lodged a complaint it did not result in a finding against Koloi, but Mrs Tuitupou denied that she was not satisfied.
Ms Tuilotolava suggested that she was fabricating, but Mrs Tuitupou said: "It's all true". Management should have done something.
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