This week the new Kaitiaki podcast launches with what has potentially been the health story of 2026.
With elections looming, emergency departments (EDs) have become a powerful symbol of the impacts of understaffing in the health system.
Listen to Kaitiaki podcast Learning to love the ed bomb
Now Kaitiaki podcast speaks to three nurses who have been on the ED frontlines — about how they got here, why they love the work, and the price they pay to do it.
Middlemore ED nurse Zanna Dunn is a self-described “old-new” nursing graduate. She finished training aged 50 and has been nursing in the ED for three years.
The staffing challenges have been constant in her time in the job, which can sometimes be akin to living in the trenches of war, she said. “So we have to have each other’s backs.”
This year NZNO members in the Gisborne Hospital ED went on strike in September for safer staffing. Meanwhile, 104 ED workers in Tauranga Hospital sent a letter to Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ (HNZ) chief executive Dale Bramley, declaring a state of emergency in the department.
‘We really, really care. People think we don’t but we really care about people, and we’re trying, and it’s just so scary out there.’
NZNO members in North Shore Hospital ED staff had a hard-fought victory in late-September after a nearly-year long campaign for more desperately-needed fulltime equivalent (FTE) staff.
So it’s no surprise that Kelly McDonald, an ED nurse in the Wellington region, says working in an ED has been incredibly tough — and she’s even dabbled in work across the ditch in Australia.
As for Gisborne nurse Sarah Kapene, who had a choice between farming and nursing as a youngster — she doesn’t regret her decision.
However, she reveals the emotional cost of ED pressure and understaffing — and how it recently forced her to change her life.
Sometimes the job is incredible, she says, and sometimes it’s like sitting on a bomb.
“The trouble is nurses and doctors care. We really, really care. People think we don’t but we really care about people, and we’re trying, and it’s just so scary out there.”