Nurses’ union critical of hospital security procedures

In a CTV News story, Ontario Nurses Association vice-president Anne Clark said: “We feel that the Guelph hospital has failed to take every reasonable precaution to protect our members on the front line. Incidents of violence have continued to occur, and we feel that the hospital has not dealt with them in a proactive manner.”

According to CTV News, a patient was shot and killed by police officers inside the hospital’s emergency room in May 2015, after stabbing himself with scissors. Following the shooting, the hospital beefed up its security protocols around its emergency room.

Hospital president Marianne Walker told CTV News that the hospital is still reviewing its security procedures for areas outside the emergency room.

In a statement released by the Ontario Nurses Association, president Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN, outlined another incident at Guelph General Hospital. “One of our members was injured when a patient became suddenly violent, grabbed the RN’s wrist, hit her in the face with a full bottle of urine, bit, punched and kicked her. Help was not readily available to the RN.”

ONA has filed a grievance against the hospital and is looking for immediate mandatory violence prevention training, a system for flagging violent patients and panic buttons for nurses working in units who do not currently possess them.