Your say: Assaults by patients are a real threat

The 18 assaults by patients on Whanganui District health Board staff in the six month to December 2017 (Chronicle, February 12) is only the reported figure, and I suggest the real figure far exceeds that.

Mr Hentie Cilliers said none of the events were required to be reported to Worksafe NZ, but staff are still assaulted.

In some departments, at peak times, the threats of violence are real - especially in the emergency department.

For Mr Cilliers to say "We do not believe this is a concern ..." is staggering.

Those who sit in warm offices and do not engage in the frontline health system have no idea what it is to face a person fuelled on alcohol or drugs.

The reality is staff are too busy doing their job to continually fill out forms for every incident.

The culture that because you are a public service employee that you are a target is real.

Mr Cilliers quoted some strategies to keep staff safe, including reporting, conducting incident reviews, audits, assessments, etc.

What frontline staff need is training from professionals who deal in this environment and not some consultant who has studied how to fix the problem from a text book.

Secondly, the staff in the hospital's emergency department need a stronger security presence at key times, including Friday and Saturday night.

RAY STEVENS, Former member, Whanganui District Health Board

Rental rules

On Waitangi Day, your article on rents being set to rise as the number of rental properties fall is a clear indictment of the failings of the capitalist economy enshrining the free market.

This principle of market demand is distorted and manipulated in rental properties because it is not easy to manage the supply of rental properties.

This means the Government must impose controls on rents rather than the current situation, which sees $2 billion a year going to subsidise landlords through accommodation supplements - a scandalous waste of taxpayer funds.

If this Government is serious about addressing poverty, putting rules in place around rental housing is perhaps the one thing that can deliver immediate results.

Such a position guarantees to put investor landlords (including 80 per cent of MPs) into a funk, as they make poor business decisions, expecting to socialise their risks while they reap large, private profits.

They will argue that rent controls, anywhere in the world, have never worked - and they are correct. But the reason is that rent controls were put in place on their own.

When this happened, landlords tossed their toys, refused to rent out their properties - effectively land-banking them - or refused to maintain them, letting them deteriorate into slums.

So our Government is not just beholden to limit rents, but also to limit landlord behaviour and reactions.

This is not unlike motor vehicles.

Their standard and operations are strongly regulated.

We wait to see if our new Government is serious about addressing poverty and has the courage to take measures that will have a lasting effect.

MURRAY SHAW, Whanganui

On knighthoods

In your editorial (February 15), you state "knighthoods are the creation of white, unelected, colonial empire-builders".

Well, maybe ...

But that hasn't stopped them being given to Steve O'Regan of remote Ngai Tahu descent and Graham Latimer of Ngapuhi, with damehoods - the female equivalent - for Whina Cooper and Tariana Turia as examples.

BRUCE MOON, Nelson

National leader

The National Party are doing it all wrong in the way they are going about selecting their new leader.

There are three or four MPs members in the running, and I say that's too many - there should only be one.

Why? Three or four will lead to in-fighting within the party.

The party should get around the conference table and select the best one to outclass Labour and scrap well with Jacinda, otherwise Labour will still be in power at the next election.

GARY STEWART, Foxton Beach