Kirsten Larsen
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 22/99) - Violent and abusive behaviour towards health-care employees in the NWT is being met with united scorn and zero tolerance from the Department of Health and Social Services.

The general policy for health and social services employees faced with threats, verbal abuse or violent behaviour from the public is to cease any assistance or communication with the abusive person if he or she is not in need of immediate attention.

Two incidents involving threats of violence and abusive behaviour towards health-care employees in the Deh Cho region over the last three weeks has put urgency into the development of a territory-wide, zero-tolerance policy by the Department of Health and Social Services.

On Wednesday, Feb. 10, in Jean Marie River, a doctor and a nurse had to barricade themselves in a health cabin to avoid a violent patient. Just two weeks before that, a nurse stationed in Wrigley fled the community after being threatened by a patient.

Chris Keeley, with Health and Social Services, said NWT residents have a responsibility to treat health-care employees with respect if they want to retain what staff they have, especially in light of the current shortage.

"The working conditions and how they (health-care staff) are treated impact their willingness to stay," said Keeley. "We are not going to be able to solve the retention problem without (the communities co-operation)."

Keeley warns that although a territory-wide zero tolerance policy is being developed, there is currently a common stand among the individual health and social services boards in response to patient violence.

"Right now each board has a zero tolerance policy," said Keeley.

The common trait among the individual policies is that staff are discouraged from assisting violent or abusive patients or clients. Keeley said the staff are only to do this when the nature of their injuries or their situation requires immediate attention. Otherwise, the patient is asked to return when they have calmed down and are respectful to the staff.

"If somebody is treated with violence our policy is to remove themselves from the situation or they would want to remove the danger in a case where the (violent) person can be removed. Usually this is done by RCMP."

Keeley said the Department of Health and Social Services is not intending to train its employees to diffuse situations involving violent patients because they would not want employees to endanger themselves.

"If someone hasn't received proper training we would not encourage them to try (to diffuse the situation)," said Keeley.

Health-care staff are being made aware of the issues surrounding zero tolerance, but Keeley said the public needs to be included in the process and become aware of its role in ensuring the quality of health care in its communities.

"There is a need to educate the community in respect to health-care issues," said Keeley. "Our problem as residents of all the communities is that all the money in the world will not be enough to keep health and social services staff in the communities if they are not treated properly."