New safety officers at Manitoba's largest hospital will be properly equipped, health minister says

Manitoba says institutional safety officers at the province's largest hospital will have access to the right tools — including pepper gel— as the program meant to make the Health Science Centre safer gets set to launch years after the law establishing it came into effect.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Wednesday the first class of security guards designated as institutional safety officers will begin patrolling HSC on Monday. The officers are trained on de-escalation techniques, law enforcement, arrests, searches and seizures, and the use of force, among other things.

"All health-care workers deserve to be safe and be safe at their place of work," Asagwara told reporters after question period Wednesday afternoon.

"The institutional safety officers is just one of many steps our government is taking to improve safety and security. That's a step that could've been, should've been taken years ago under the previous PC government."

The announcement comes  a day after the arbitrator in a dispute between the provincial nurses' union and the Health Science Centre found there was "little doubt" progress on the program has been slow.

The province first announced plans to give hospital security guards the power to detain violent individuals in 2019. The legislation establishing institutional safety officers came into force in the fall of 2021, while the Progressive Conservatives where still in power. Last year, the Manitoba Nurses Union complained they hadn't seen any change since then.

The union filed the grievance in late June, amid numerous incidents of violent crime and theft around the HSC. It claimed Shared Health failed to maintain a safe workplace, in violation of workplace safety regulations and their collective agreement.

Safety standards not fully met, arbitrator says

Arbitrator Kris Gibson found that, while there have been security improvements, including the establishment of 24/7 security in the parkades south of the centre, "the required standards have only been partially met" elsewhere.

"There remains an unacceptable level of risk to the safety of employees presented by the William parkade," Gibson's report states.

She ordered Shared Health to implement the same level of safety measures at that site as currently exists at the Emily and Tecumseh parkades — which includes the immediate instalment of 24/7 manned security.

Gibson also cited an unacceptable level of risk to employees in exterior areas of HSC campus that are not sufficiently mitigated by current measures, such as employee "self-help" instructions or the safe escort program.

She ordered Shared Health to create a safety and security plan within 30 days

Gibson also concluded the reclassification of institutional safety officers was "unlikely to have much impact on the exterior safety risks" without a change in the deployment of employed security. She noted that two of HSC's witnesses testified the security department was under-resourced.

The arbitrator declined a request from the union to order the officers be issued with batons and aerosol weapons because she had "no evidence on the efficacy of such weapons."

The province said the pepper gel directive came down Wednesday, because they wanted to read the arbitrator's decision first.

"To have pepper gel is just one of the steps that we're taking," Asagwara said. "We are also looking at implementing metal detectors. We're looking at enhancing and improving the use of amnesty lockers. We're looking at the police presence. We're also looking at community safety host program being on site there and elsewhere."

Kathleen Cook, the Progressive Conservative health critic, said security guards elsewhere already have those tools.

"I'd like to see the ISOs fully equipped to do their job, which is to protect staff and patients," she said. "If that means that they need pepper spray or the other tools that have been made available to them at U of M side of the campus, then I think that it's very reasonable to expect that they should have the same tools in the HSC ER."

The province said there will be more training classes for new institutional safety officers planned over the next three months, with the goal being to hire 105 such positions across HSC, St. Boniface Hospital, Victoria General Hospital, Brandon Regional Health Centre and Selkirk Mental Health Centre.