A veteran nurse at Health Sciences Centre is sounding the alarm over patient safety, writing to political and health-care leaders about the “ongoing and escalating violence” faced by health professionals in Manitoba.
“Inadequate security measures and unsafe staff levels… leave both staff and patients vulnerable,” the nurse, who’s worked at Manitoba’s largest trauma centre for 34 years said in a Nov. 21 email tabled in the legislature Friday.
The letter was sent to Premier Wab Kinew, Shared Health CEO Lanette Siragusa, Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson and the Tory opposition.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
The Health Sciences Centre
The nurse, whose name and email address were redacted for the media, said in the past year a crowbar, a heavy lock and chain and screwdrivers have been found on the medicine unit where she works.
“The crowbar was under a patient’s pant leg that they held in place with their hand in their pocket,” she wrote, asking how patients are allowed to carry items that could be used as weapons into the hospital.
Outbursts and other unsettling behaviours have also raised concerns recently among staff, patients and visitors, she wrote, describing someone who got into an elevator with a staff member this week and started to kick at the door when it closed and was “verbally aggressive.”
“We have patients’ loved ones afraid to leave due to the threats other patients verbally utter, and at times throw items around,” the email said, adding security personnel are a 15-minute walk from her unit, in the event she or other staff need help.
A silent alarm that was disconnected when the unit was relocated during the COVID-19 pandemic has not been reconnected, she wrote.
She described depleted staffing levels Wednesday that didn’t allow nurses on the unit to take their coffee or lunch breaks. Staff are required to fill out work overload sheets when that happens, but they weren’t able to spare 10 minutes to complete the forms.
“I am angry and nauseous and honestly afraid of being reprimanded,” she wrote.
The nurse said in the email that she is walking away from the profession next year to save her mental and physical health, and fears for her “team.”
Jackson said Friday she wasn’t surprised to hear about the crisis conditions.
“I am very happy that this nurse reached out to the right people,” she said. “We need a political will to fix it.”
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the NDP government is in the process of doing that.
“We’ve taken real steps to address safety and security concerns at HSC, and that’s based on listening to nurses and health-care workers…. We’ve made sure that there are dozens of institutional safety officers (ISOs) on site at Health Sciences Center with more to come,” Asagwara told the Free Press Friday.
Shared Health posted openings for 21 additional ISOs last month. When training is complete, the number of officers at HSC with the authority and training to detain someone — will increase by about 50 per cent, to 62.
Asagwara said weapon-detection technology piloted at the HSC emergency and crisis-response centre entrances earlier this year is being made permanent. The government is assessing the safety and security at sites across the province before deploying more scanners.
HSC nurses have asked for weapons scanners at every entrance, Jackson said.
A Shared Health spokesperson said HSC has been been positioning ISOs and security guards at entry points to engage with patients and visitors as they arrive and direct them to amnesty lockers if they need to deposit weapons before they can go further. Thee has been an increase in locker use and fewer weapons have been seized.
“Each site has their own unique needs,” Asagwara said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. We are working with front-line workers and health leadership across the province who have these challenges, and we’re learning what their needs are and we’re supporting them and taking the necessary steps.”
Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook, who shared the email in the legislature, said safety issues in Manitoba hospitals are getting worse and that more needs to be done.
“There’s no reason for a crowbar or heavy chains or any of these potential weapons to be in an emergency room or anywhere in a hospital,” Cook said.
Shared Health said HSC security has completed a review of the medicine unit where the crowbar was discovered and said it has a safety plan in place. A security guard at the entrance controls access 12 hours per day, and security buzzes visitors into the area during off-hours.
A response to a call for security from that unit is typically responded to within a minute or two, the spokesman said.
It feels like the safety issues are escalating and getting more intense, Jackson 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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