Thompson General Hospital nurse says pleas for increased security measures ignored amid ER violence

A nurse at Thompson General Hospital says concerns of violence spilling into the emergency room, threatening the safety of patients and staff, are being left largely unanswered by health authorities.

In an letter sent to the health minister and table by the Progressive Conservatives during Monday's question period, the health-care worker said nursing staff are being "abused physically, verbally, emotionally and sexually on a regular basis." 

The nurse, whose name is redacted from a copy of the letter shared with CBC, said staff have submitted 39 workplace health and safety concern reports over the past year, but none of them have been replied to, and the situation is worsening.

Fights break out in the waiting room, threatening the safety of staff, the letter said, with RCMP also being called to remove "violent patients" from the building on a daily basis. 

More notably recently, Mounties responded to a call about a man with a gun inside the hospital's chapel, who pointed a .22-calibre rifle at staff and fired the gun through a window before hospital security staff secured the weapon on Christmas Eve.

Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, said a rise in crime in Thompson is spilling over in the hospital's emergency department, which is getting "much more dangerous" than it was before. 

Regarding the 39 reports raised by the nurse in the email, Jackson said those could also include broken pieces of equipment or workplace accidents, but she believes they are related to the employer's inability to keep staff safe. 

"That's a large number for a facility that size," Jackson said, but what's more concerning is that "no one is paying any notice to it."

"Staff feel unsafe every day, every shift at work, they just don't file a report unless something big has happened," Jackson said.

The health-care worker said multiple emails and occurrence reports have also been submitted by staff on the safety concerns, but the Northern Regional Regional Health Authority, which oversees Thompson General, is "ignoring our pleas" to increase security.

CBC News has reached out to the Northern Regional Health Authority, but it didn't hear back in time for publication. 

Manitoba deploying institutional safety officers

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said their office received the letter last week and have since reached out to the health-care worker who sent it. 

Asagwara told CBC News safety and security concerns are not isolated to Thompson General Hospital, with health-care workers from across the province reporting similar issues with their office. 

The minister blamed the previous Progressive Conservative government for not taking "any action" to improve safety in hospitals by ignoring the voice of health-care workers who were pleading for changes to bolster security in hospitals. 

"We fully understand where these concerns are coming from and what additional steps the government can take to improve safety," Asagwara said in a phone interview. 

One of those actions was the deployment of institutional safety officers (ISO), licensed security guards with additional training with authority to detain people and enforce provincial laws, who have been assigned since last year. 

Asagwara said about 100 ISOs have been assigned to hospitals, and there are plans to continue training and deploying more, with some of them "on their way to Thompson General Hospital." 

However, the minister said the implementation of ISOs could have happened much sooner, arguing that the former PC government "sat for over two years with legislation" that would have enabled the hiring and training of officers. 

Jackson said the union has been calling for ISOs to be deployed to Thompson since December but argues that since the budget for them was made public, "there has been absolutely no transparency on when the training is going to start."

PC health critic Kathleen Cook, who tabled the email during the question period, said the province also needs to take action on the recommendations issued by the Manitoba Nurses Union earlier this year for outfitting ISOs with proper equipment, including batons, pepper spray and consider equipping them with stun guns.

But there is also a need, Cook said, to implement additional security measures in Thompson's hospital, including installing weapon scanners, similar to those already at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre, as well as RCMP panic buttons — the latter being a suggestion included by the nurse in their email. 

"They feel unheard by the NDP government," Cook, who has also spoken with the nurse, told reporters at a scrum. 

"They've raised these concerns multiple times over the last year and nothing's been done to address their concerns," she said. "That's unacceptable."