Starship "tarnished" by hoax email 

Auckland's Starship Hospital is distancing itself from a hoax email appealing for support for a dying child.

The fraudulent message uses the name of a senior female staff member who has been forced to go on stress leave.
 
The hospital fears its own fund-raising efforts may be tarnished by the hoax.

Hundreds of people have been duped and the woman staff member has been verbally abused over the fraudulent email.

The email reads, "Hi my name is Amy Bruce. I am seven years old and have severe lung cancer... I also have a large tumour in my brain from repeated beatings."

The email, a story of a little girl who is gravely ill, takes a blatant tug at the heart.

"Doctors say I will die soon if this isn't fixed and my family can't pay the bills," the email continues.

Andrew Young, from Starship Hospital, is now warning people to delete the email if they receive it. "Do not sent it on. It's a complete hoax," he says.

The email doesn't ask for money but says the Make a Wish Foundation, linked to Starship Hospital, will donate seven cents every time the message is sent on.

"The email's got so many disturbing components to it. It is emotive, it draws on the heart strings. People have been questioning whether it's genuine or not and we've had very angry callers who have rung in and attacked us," says Young.

More disturbingly the email actually claims to be from a senior staff member at Starship Hospital and unlike the email, she is real. But the response has not been good and she is now on stress leave.

"She's getting a lot of phone calls from people attacking her," says Young.

"She puts her heart and soul into her job and it's very devastating for her to have her identity plonked into this email," he adds.

IT specialists have examined the email but there seems no way of tracing its origins.

"There's no way that they could gain financially from this so I don't know. Maybe there's some glory in duping thousands and thousands of New Zealanders," says Young.

It is believed the email has been circulating globally for around 10 years using the names of various charities from around the world. But Starship and Make a Wish now fear any genuine fundraising they do has been tarnished by the hoax.