Third drugs snatch

Press, 7 January 1983, Page 1

Third drugs snatch

PA Auckland An armed robbery at Middlemore Hospital early yesterday was the third drugs-related crime in the area in 24 hours.

A man armed with a pistol and wearing a balaclava threatened three nurses before escaping with a lot of drugs. The man. described by the police as desperate, entered a first-floor orthopaedic ward by climbing a fire escape. In a separate incident, a 'doctors surgery at Papatoetoe was ransacked on Tuesday night and syringes, pills, and a small amount of cash were stolen.

On the same night a doctor's car was broken into at Maraetai and a bag. believed to have contained drugs, was taken. The head of the Otahuhu C. 1.8., Detective Chief Inspector B. N. Middleton. said

the police would look at the possibility that the three raids were linked.

The robbery at Middlemore Hospital occurred about 1.30 a.m. A man, said to be a well spoken European, aged about 20, and dressed in a grey boiler suit and a grey woollen balaclava with eye-holes, pointed a pistol at the three female nurses, demanding that the drug cabinet be opened. The man had emptied a cabinet of drugs, including morphine, pethidine and codeine, then escaped down a fire escape.

Mr Middleton said the three nurses were frightened, but were pot hurt. The deputy manager of the hospital, Mr Keith Heggie, said he was worried about security at Middlemore. “The hospital is a very open place and we are going

to have to take some measures to alter this,” he said.

The hospital’s security staff worked during the day and a private security firm patrolled the hospital bynight. “But we are not prepared to battle against men with guns,” Mr Heggie said. The South Auckland regional officer of the Nurses’ Association, Ms Colleen Hicks, said she was horrified that nurses should have guns pointed at them. “Nurses have been told to give in in such situations. " she said, “but because of that there should be much better security.” The national director of the Nurses’ Society. Mr David Wills, said he hoped the incident would encourage a few hospitals, which were not up to scratch, to review security.