The Government lays out its next checklist for the country, how a bank manager helped victims send money to scammers, and school stand-downs and suspensions on the rise in the latest NZ Herald headlines.
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Wairarapa Hospital did not have a track record of violent incidents before a machete attack on Saturday night, Health Minister Shane Reti says.
He was responding to calls for more security measures at some of the country’s smaller emergency departments at hospitals around the country.
The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists has claimed no security guards were on hand when the attack took place just before midnight which Te Whatu Ora has denied. It said security staff were on duty in the ED and were able to attend “within seconds”.
The government temporarily boosted the number of security officers at emergency departments over the summer.
Since then, eight ‘hot-spot’ EDs have kept the extra guards, with others receiving funding when they need it. That money is due to expire on July 1, and Reti refused to give an assurance of it being extended further because the information was “Budget sensitive”.