Marae health centre trials anti-violence smart watches

“It’s important staff have options if they find themselves in a precarious or difficult situation”

General practice staff at Papakura Marae Health Centre could soon carry violence-prevention smart watches and provide them to their at-risk patients.

The Safety Watch, intended as an alert when someone is under threat, has a two-step alarm, live audio recording connected to a call centre, and help and cancel buttons. It can be linked to a 24/7 monitoring centre or a support person.

The marae is undertaking a pilot of the 4G watches with front-line social workers and hopes to roll them out to other employees and whānau in the next three months.

Marae chief executive Tony Kake says Sir Ray Avery, who founded anti-violence organisation Help@Hand and developed the device, approached him with the idea.

Sir Ray was taken into care as a young child after being beaten and abused by his parents but went on to become an entrepreneur.

Mr Kake says the watch is similar to a MedicAlert system because people from the emergency call centre at Help@Hand can be deployed to help straight away. Trigger words like “help” can set off the silent alarm, he says. Code words or phrases can also be programmed in.

The initial idea was to give the watches to whānau with a history of family violence but using the watch for worker safety is another opportunity.

The health centre is not a dangerous clinic but every now and then there is an incident and it “just takes one person”, says Mr Kake – “you never know what people are on”.

Four outreach staff who visit people in their homes are trialling the Smart Watch. The marae is in negotiations another 40 to 50 to start trialling the devices soon. About half will be for staff and half for the community as part of an extended trial. Mr Kake says the community watches will be funded by Help@Hand.

Each watch costs $300 and monitoring is $420 a year. Sir Ray says the trust will fully fund 80 watches for Papakura Marae’s frontline domestic violence staff. He is in early discussions with ACC, which he hopes will fund the devices more widely.

Help@Hand has been rolling the Safety Watch out with other agencies, mostly in Australia and the US. In Australia, 12,000 families are using the technology and are being monitored 24/7.

Sir Ray says it allows domestic violence victims to let police know what officers are getting themselves into before they arrive. The incidence of domestic violence goes down once people start using the watch: “It prevents more attacks and empowers women,” he says.

In the New Zealand trial, the feedback is good so far, Sir Ray says. He will not supply a photo of the product because he doesn’t want abusers to know what it looks like.

Mr Kake says the marae deals with a lot of whānau subjected to family violence, so plans to give them the watches for protection.

In a media release, he says: “We already have the trial under way with early signs of success. I then want to train our family violence team on how to teach victims how to keep them and their families safe from fear and ongoing abuse.”

He tells New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa: “If someone has an abusive partner, they could just see a phone and smack it.” He thinks the watch will be different: If someone sees their partner is getting abusive, they can activate it. He says it might also be a deterrent: “If you touch me again, I will press the button.”

Once there is more funding, GPs could give the Safety Watch to patients at risk of family violence, suggests Sir Ray.

Plunket nurses and emergency department staff could also use it, along with nurses walking alone to their cars at night. People at risk of suicide could also use it for immediate contact with a buddy or support service.