‘Really upsetting’: nurse blasts lack of hospital communication after sex assaults in, near HSC

A nurse says Health Sciences Centre staff were at risk because they were kept in the dark Wednesday about five sexual assaults that occurred in and around the building, with a suspect at large until he was arrested the next day.

The emergency room nurse was working Wednesday night, several hours after four women and one teen were sexually assaulted inside and outside HSC. She said staff were not told about the assaults or that police had been called.

“We weren’t made aware to be extra vigilant, that there was someone that had gone out and made attacks around the area, they didn’t let us know that nobody had been arrested or found, and that they were still on the loose,” said the nurse, who spoke to the Free Press under the condition of anonymity.

“I walked to my car at midnight with another nurse, but we had no idea that there was a threat around the hospital. That was really upsetting, to just not be shared any of that information.”

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A 28-year-old man was arrested at 5:30 p.m. Thursday on the 600 block of Spence Street, the Winnipeg Police Service said in a news release Friday.

The day before, the WPS said it investigated four random sexual assaults within about an hour Wednesday evening — beginning at 7 p.m., when a teenage girl was confronted by a man and assaulted in the area of Elgin Avenue and Sherbrook Street, and ending at 7:45 p.m., when an HSC staff member was assaulted while walking near the hospital on Emily Street near McDermot Avenue.

Another staff member was assaulted while walking in the hospital tunnels.

A fifth woman has since reported being sexually assaulted Wednesday on the 600 block of Notre Dame Avenue.

The suspect faces a variety of charges, including five counts of sexual assault, three counts of assault and carrying a concealed weapon. Police said the suspect is known to police but did not release his name Friday.

Advocacy organization Doctors Manitoba said in a statement Friday it has heard concerns from HSC physicians who were “disappointed about the lack of timely communication about the recent attacks within the hospital, and more broadly about the supports available to keep physicians and staff safe.”

“For me, it was just another example of the leadership at HSC not validating and understanding people’s experience of what it’s like working there.”–Anonymous nurse

Shared Health said the incidents happened within minutes and that security staff were notified and responded Wednesday, while efforts were made to inform staff Thursday evening.

Mental health support sessions were scheduled for staff Friday and Monday.

”We are taking this opportunity to listen and review how we can better support them,” a Shared Health spokesperson said in an email.

The HSC nurse said she only learned of the incidents after a memo was sent to all HSC staff Thursday afternoon warning there had been reports of people being “assaulted by inappropriate touching or groping,” but did not say when.

The memo’s wording, she said, left her “disgusted” and believes choosing not to call the incidents sexual assaults minimizes the level of violence the victims experienced.

“For me, it was just another example of the leadership at HSC not validating and understanding people’s experience of what it’s like working there,” she said.

Safety measures have been put in place since an arbitrator’s report last year on a Manitoba Nurses Union grievance found HSC staff face an “unacceptable level of risk.” Since then, 42 institutional safety officers have been employed at the hospital. They work alongside private security and are trained to restrain people and are armed with pepper gel.

Safety officers do not have the jurisdiction to intervene in situations outside the hospital, noted Jason Linklater, the president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals.

“(HSC) have implemented measures that are important and appreciated … (but Wednesday’s) incidents occurred in a time frame at different locations around the campus, and they were not stopped, observed or reacted to,” he said.

“And so I think it speaks to the reality of the situation, which, in many times, is that staff are at risk and left to their own devices in and around the HSC campus.”

He’d like to see the provincial government connect with the City of Winnipeg on how to best provide security not just in, but around HSC.

“You hit the sidewalk, and it’s out of their hands,” he said.

Nurses union president Darlene Jackson said membership has reported that safety officers are, at times, so short-staffed that they aren’t always able to be stationed at the mandatory areas.

“There are some very, very big issues with the (institutional safety officers) and the inability to retain them and to keep them scheduled, and I think that’s been an ongoing issue for some time,” she said.

It isn’t enough to be told to stay vigilant, the anonymous HSC nurse stressed, and using safe escort services isn’t always feasible.

“It’s like, well, what are you doing then, as an employer, to keep us safe, where we have to be alert at all times and vigilant at all times, and it’s not safe to walk to your car?” said the woman who’s worked in health care for more than a decade.

“(Or saying) ‘You should always take a security ride to your car.’ If we all did that, the wait times would be astronomical to get to your car at the end of your shift.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak 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.