Yellowknife hospital looks at security changes after patient rampage

Hospital administrators say they're working with staff to make Stanton Territorial Hospital a safer place to work following a confrontation two weeks ago where a patient became violent in the emergency room.

The staff's union is calling for security guards to be able to step in physically when patients are unruly, but Dr. Anna Reid, the hospital's medical director and a physician in the emergency department, says the hospital isn't allowed to hire security guards with that kind of authority.

"At present we do have security guards in our emergency department who are highly trained in de-escalating situations, but one of the issues here in the Northwest Territories is there is no legislation in place that allows us to hire a security person who's allowed to physically restrain someone," she says. "That legislation does not exist."

Reed says in her 25 years at Stanton, last week's event was one of two serious violent incidents that she's seen, but she adds that violence in general is something she, along with all front-line workers at the hospital, deal with frequently. 

Reid says she arrived at the emergency department about 20 minutes after the violent rampage occurred.

"The first steps were to go in and assess the situation, see if we needed new staff in, calling in new nurses and physicians, make sure the patients who were there at the time were all safe," she says.

Although both doors to the emergency department require a key card for entry, hospital staff told their union president Sheila Laity that the man simply lifted the latch of the hinged counter at the triage desk and entered the emergency department that way.

"[Emergency department staff] want it to be secure so that only those authorized will come into the department," says Laity.

Reid agrees that there are several structural changes that would improve the safety of those working and being treated in the emergency department.

"The very next day we started developing some short-term solutions to start to improve the safety in our hospital," she says, adding that it's not just the emergency department that deals with violence on a regular basis, but also the extended-care unit and psychiatry unit.

"This is an opportunity for us at Stanton to further discussions with the Department of Health and Social Services about how we might actually look at different security options for our hospital," says Reid. 

She says those kind of changes would take time. Until then, she says hospital administrators have met with RCMP, and a workplace violence committee is looking at structural changes for the emergency department.