Asagwara orders Shared Health to arm HSC safety officers protecting ER with pepper gel By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:06 PM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 10, 2024 Last Modified: 9:16 PM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 10, 2024 Updates

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Manitoba’s health minister has ordered Shared Health to equip safety officers, who will begin working in the Health Science Centre’s emergency department Monday, with pepper gel.

“Ensuring they have the correct tools is a top priority,” Uzoma Asagwara said during question period at the legislature Wednesday. “That is why I directed they be equipped with pepper gel at HSC and we’re exploring all options to enhance safety.”

Asagwara announced the directive after the Free Press reported security in the University of Manitoba’s Bannatyne Avenue medical sciences buildings — which make up part of the HSC campus — is significantly higher than in the ER, where the number and severity of violent incidents has escalated over the past months.

The first complement of a dozen specially trained institutional safety officers at HSC are scheduled to begin working Monday. Unlike officers employed by the U of M elsewhere on campus, those working for Shared Health in the ER were not going to be equipped with batons or pepper gel — a variant of the more common pepper spray law-enforcement weapon.

Asagwara’s announcement followed an arbitrator’s decision Tuesday on a grievance filed by the Manitoba Nurses Union over safety concerns in and around HSC parking facilities. The nurses have also reported an increase in violent incidents inside the province’s largest hospital in recent years.

MNU president Darlene Jackson was dismayed to learn Tuesday that officers protecting front-line emergency health workers were not as well-armed as those providing security to university students and staff.

The arbitrator’s report did not address whether HSC safety officers should be armed with pepper gel, so the health minister made that decision, a government source said Wednesday.

A Shared Health spokesman told the Free Press Tuesday that institutional safety officers at HSC would initially be carrying restraints, and the need for additional equipment would be evaluated.

“It’s important to note that HSC is a hospital and its security needs are not the same as an educational institution,” the spokesman said, adding officials would be “balancing the security needs of the facility and the continued need for HSC to be a welcoming space for those seeking care.”

Asagwara said Wednesday that safety has to be a priority.

“Every health care worker should be able to do their jobs safely and every person in our province should be guaranteed a safe emergency room or hospital,” the minister told the house, noting the former Progressive Conservative government brought in legislation in 2021 to authorize specially-trained institutional officers to use batons, pepper gel and handcuffs, if needed, to restrain and detain anyone threatening the safety of others.

“(The Tories) promised safety officers but never delivered — all they did was cut, cut, cut,” Asagwara said. “Our government has taken action.”

The health minister told reporters after question period Wednesday that the institutional safety officer program is being expanded beyond HSC.

The officers will be installed at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, at other sites in Winnipeg — including Victoria Hospital — in Brandon and beyond.

“The training for institutional safety officers will continue throughout the spring and summer and we’ll continue to have these officers rolled out at sites across the province,” Asagwara said.

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“It’s happening at a heightened pace because we recognize the need and we’re listening to the nurses and those who provide care and those receive care.”

Asagwara said the government is also looking at installing weapons detectors at the HSC. In 2022, it installed “amnesty lockers” to allow people to voluntarily lock up items they may have that might be considered weapons.

Jackson said the lockers are seldom used.

Asagwara said the hospital is looking at how to encourage greater use of those lockers and other measures.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.