More violence at Stanton
At least three health-care workers hurt,
union leader says security guards must be able to intervene
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 28, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A "kicking, scratching, thrashing" patient has injured at least three health care workers at Stanton Territorial Hospital.
The Jan. 23 incident is at least the second violent occurrence at the hospital since Nov. 20 and comes just days after NWT Health Minister Glen Abernethy told Yellowknifer the hospital has a policy of non-violent crisis intervention.
Union of Northern Workers local president Sheila Laity, who represents 479 workers at Stanton, said the latest incident once again highlights the need for intervention in violent situations by hospital security guards.
Laity was not at the hospital in the early evening when the patient in a third floor psychiatric unit became uncontrollable. A code white was declared, summoning at least one person from every unit in the hospital to help.
"The patient escalated their behaviour to a point beyond where our staff is trained to de-escalate the situation," Laity said. "It took eight to ten staff members, predominantly nurses, to struggle with the person. They were eventually able to control the patient and get the individual into a secure room where the patient and the staff were then safe."
Laity said the patient was "kicking, scratching and thrashing" and at least three hospital staff were injured. Some workers were hurt badly enough to take time off work although she wasn't sure how many or how long they were off.
Declining to say whether the violent patient was male or female, Laity said neither the RCMP nor hospital security guards were not called to help.
"Our staff feel that they need someone there to intervene when an escalating situation gets out of control," Laity said. "Security staff are not allowed to touch patients."
Laity is instructing staff at Stanton Hospital to write to their MLAs. "What I want our members to do is contact their MLAs and ask - why do you have the right to be safe at work, but I do not? Why are security guards at the legislative assembly allowed to intervene in a violent situation but ours are not?"
The situation became a hot button issue on Nov. 20, when a patient went berserk in the emergency ward, smashing equipment and forcing staff to lock themselves in a room. It was revealed at that time security officers are not allowed to physically intervene in confrontations.
Laity said she thought legislation kept guards from intervening "but then I read in your paper that the hospital has a policy emphasizing intervention over physical restraint. I don't know which it is. I'm betwixt and between on which policy is correct," she said.
Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley said that he has been contacted by staff at Stanton who said they may leave their jobs if the situation doesn't improve. "We have to find out if this is a policy issue, a legislative issue or perhaps a money issue."
He said if safety is a priority then it has to be determined if there is money in the budget to address the concerns. Bromley said it may be that the government has to pay the security firm more for them to provide guards trained to restrain violent people in the hospital.
Yellowknifer contacted the GNWT's Health and Social Services Department to get a comment from Stanton's acting CEO David Keselman, who stated in an e-mail that he couldn't respond to the latest incident for confidentiality reasons.
