There are pleas for extra security staff at two Auckland hospitals.
Frightened health workers at Waitemata and North Shore hospital say have called security hundreds of times because of violent and abusive patients and visitors.
Internal documents obtained through the Official Information Act show panic buttons were pressed just over 300 times, and more than 500 calls were made to security via the internal emergency number over a seven-month period.
Over a thousand non-emergency calls were also made involving mental distress.
Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels spoke to Corin Dann
