John MacDonald: Sockburn killing - the buck stops with you, Minister

We started the week horrified by the random killing of Laisa Waka on Cheyenne Street in Sockburn, in Christchurch.
She’d been at work last Saturday at a retirement village, finished up, got the bus home, had a 300 metre walk from the bus stop to her house, was nearly there - it was about 20-past-four - but she didn’t make it home. She was attacked in broad daylight by a man with a knife. Emergency services got there, but they couldn’t save her and she died at the scene.
The police, at that point, were saying that the man allegedly responsible for the killing was known to them. It was also being reported back on Monday that he was in the care of mental health services.
That’s how our week started and we were horrified.
Five days on, and now that we know more, we are scratching our heads wondering how the hell this was allowed to happen.
Because, since Monday, we’ve learned that the man accused of killing Laisa was on community leave from a specialist mental health facility at Hillmorton Hospital. As it’s been reported, he had been in a secure unit but somehow he was allowed to leave.
At about 2 o'clock last Saturday afternoon, he walked out of Hillmorton and got a bus to his brother’s place in Sockburn. At some point he left his brother’s place, and it was shortly after that when the alleged killing took place.
It was 4.45pm when the Police were notified that the man wasn’t at the hospital - nearly 30 minutes after the alleged killing happened.
Today, there are further developments, with it being reported that since this all happened, staff at the mental health unit have quit their jobs.
We don’t know how many but a report I’ve seen says “several”.
Although, health authorities have since disputed that.
The same report also quotes a Hillmorton staff member who says a meeting had been held to discuss whether or not the man should be allowed to leave the unit, but the final decision was made by a psychiatrist.
As this person is quoted as saying, some staff at the hospital didn’t think he should’ve been allowed to leave because he had been quite volatile in the days leading up to last weekend and alarm bells were going off for some people.
According to this report, it is thought that the psychiatrist who made the call to grant the man community leave has since gone on stress leave. Which I for one can certainly understand. Can you imagine being the person who made that call?
Not that the psychiatrist can expect much sympathy from Andrew Little who was asked this week whether, as Health Minister, he carries the blame for the man being allowed to leave Hillmorton. In short, he doesn't think he does.
Although Andrew Little is getting his Director of Mental Health to do an inspection of Hillmorton Hospital. Which I gather isn’t done lightly because it requires using statutory powers which seem to be some sort of last resort.
But do you think that’s going to be of any comfort to Laisa Waka’s family who held a funeral for her in Christchurch yesterday and who’re flying her body back home to Fiji today? Do you think they’ll care about that? Not right now they won’t, anyway.
But they will want to know how the hell this happened. Her husband was saying as much earlier in the week when the health board was being all tight-lipped on it, hiding behind that age-old lame excuse of not commenting on something being investigated by the police.
Which is a load of old nonsense because whatever happened in the lead-up to that man walking out of Hillmorton last Saturday has nothing to do with determining whether or not he is guilty of the crime he is accused of.
And, as the week has gone on, the health board has been forced to prise open its lips and be a little bit more upfront about what actually happened last weekend.
Typically, though, most of the info has come from the people on the inside at Hillmorton who are having to deal with the cards...

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