Manitoba’s largest hospital is sampling an array of weapon-detection systems after a surge in violent incidents, while one Winnipeg sports club has adopted the technology to keep patrons safe.
Before the Health Sciences Centre began trying different systems on July 16, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers gave one a go at the start of the Canadian Football League season before making a commitment.
“After positive results, we’ve expanded their use across all gates for the past three games,” Winnipeg Football Club president and CEO Wade Miller said in a statement Thursday before the Bombers took on the B.C. Lions at Princess Auto Stadium.
The club has been using the Opengate detection system designed for the automatic screening of people in transit, including their luggage, backpacks, bags, for improvised explosive devices and “mass casualty metal threats,” the security company website says.
“This technology has quickly become an essential part of our fan-screening process, enhancing safety while making the entry experience less intrusive and quicker,” Miller said, noting fans entering the stadium don’t have to empty their pockets or remove items from bags and purses.
Opengate boasts that its system has a “near zero rate” of false alarms, is portable and suitable for all environmental conditions. The Bombers were the first team in the CFL to use the scanners, Miller said.
HSC tested one system for about a week at the entrance to the adult emergency department and then moved the scanners to the Crisis Response Centre for four days, a Shared Health spokesperson said.
A different vendor is scheduled to provide a scanner for use in the adult emergency department next week, and a third vendor’s system will be observed in action off-site, the spokesperson said.
Feedback from staff, patients and visitors has so far been positive, leading to an increase in the use of “amnesty lockers,” he said.
So-called amnesty lockers were installed at HSC’s adult emergency department two years ago for people to voluntarily lock up items that could be viewed as weapons.
They were reportedly seldom used until the weapon scanner pilot project began.
Shared Health will consider the feedback it gets while reviewing and comparing the three different systems when the pilot program concludes later this summer, the spokesman said, adding the process to formally select a vendor is expected to quickly follow.
“We are pleased to hear that some action is finally being taken, despite the fact it is only a trial period,” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said Thursday.
In an email, Jackson told the Free Press it’s regrettable that it took an arbitration award to prompt the pilot program.
An arbitrator ruled in April that HSC staff face an “unacceptable level of risk” in exterior areas of the hospital campus and gave the facility 30 days to create a safety plan.
A separate arbitration panel was to address interior safety concerns.
“This has been a longstanding and significant safety and risk situation,” Jackson said. “We are continuing to monitor to ensure that the needed steps are introduced on a permanent basis, as well as (that) the promised expansion of (institutional safety officers) and security needed at every entrance, in every facility, is in fact delivered upon.
A spokesman for physician advocacy organization Doctors Manitoba said security is a major concern at the facility.
“Any proven steps that create a safer space for physicians, staff and the public are welcomed,” spokesman Keir Johnson said, adding he hadn’t received any feedback on the technology pilot yet.
“Physicians at HSC report an average of two to three physical safety incidents and six to seven psychological safety incidents per year.”
Short-term trials to assess weapon-detection systems are useful, but are not a permanent remedy, Jackson said.
“There remains a great deal more work to be done to ensure the workplace addresses safety hazards in health-care facilities,” she said.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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