Doctor assaulted at HSC on first weekend with around-the-clock police presence

A doctor at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre was assaulted on the first weekend of its 24-7 police patrol of the campus.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Claude Chancy confirmed an on-duty physician was assaulted by a patient just before 11 a.m. Sunday morning.

A North District general patrol unit was at the hospital for an unrelated matter and assisted HSC security staff dealing with a patient who had assaulted the doctor, Chancy said in an email.

The unit requested assistance from officers assigned to the recently announced 24-7 hospital detail.

Chancy said the doctor was assaulted with several items, including a Kleenex box and what was described as a heavy box. Details about the extent of the injuries was not made available.

A woman in her 30s was taken into custody and faces a charge of assault with a weapon. She was detained in custody.

Health minister Uzoma Asagwara briefly spoke with the doctor Monday morning and expected to follow up with them later in the day.

“Health-care workers should be safe to (do) their jobs. They should know they’re going to go to work and be safe with their employment and go home to their families at the end of the day. Any incident of violence is unacceptable,” Asagwara said at an unrelated news conference Monday morning.

Police began a permanent patrol Saturday after a spike in violent incidents and safety concerns at the downtown hospital.

Two Winnipeg police officers will be on each shift to have a visible presence in the adult emergency department and conduct patrols elsewhere at the province’s largest hospital. The officers will be working on voluntary overtime.

Shared Health informed physician advocacy group Doctors Manitoba about the incident “within hours,” an emailed statement from spokesperson Keir Johnson said.

Doctors Manitoba has reached out to the victim to offer support and to hear more about what happened to identify more opportunities to improve safety at the hospital.

“While we’ve seen significant steps to improve safety at HSC in recent months, this terrible assault is an unnecessary reminder that more actions are needed,” Keir said.

A Doctors Manitoba survey from August showed physicians who work at HSC are subjected to nearly half of all the assaults perpetrated against doctors in the province.

At the time, more than four in 10 of all physical safety incidents reported to Doctors Manitoba over the previous 12 months occurred at or near HSC, the survey said.

“While we’ve seen significant steps to improve safety at HSC in recent months, this terrible assault is an unnecessary reminder that more actions are needed.”

Around the same time as the survey, the Manitoba Nurses Union voted to “grey list” the hospital, a declaration that the workplace is unsafe and nurses should consider turning down shifts as a result.

HSC will continue to be grey listed until Shared Health implements several safety-related demands from the union, president Darlene Jackson said Monday.

While Jackson said she was sorry to hear about Sunday’s incident, the charges laid against the suspect were encouraging for other health-care workers.

Jackson has heard of some nurses being discouraged from pressing charges when they are assaulted because the patient was under the influence or considered vulnerable.

“To me this may signal a change in the way these issues are dealt with,” she said, noting she’s optimistic officers will help decrease violent incidents at HSC.

On Oct. 19, a health-care aide and a nurse were assaulted at HSC while they sat with a patient who was waiting in emergency to receive mental-health services.

The union was told the aide was “choked out” by the patient.

“To me this may signal a change in the way these issues are dealt with.”

In April 2024, an arbitrator gave Shared Health 30 days to create a safety plan for HSC, saying staff faced an “unacceptable level of risk” outside the hospital.

Asagwara said in addition to the 24-7 police officers, HSC has reduced its access points to the hospital, has added more institutional safety officers and five new weapons detectors at entrances.

Upwards of 130 safety officers are stationed at health-care facilities across the province, the minister said.

Dr. Shawn Young, HSC’s chief operating officer, said in an emailed statement Monday afternoon the health authority remains committed to addressing security issues at the hospital.

Asagwara spoke about the incident at the same time the province announced it had added 323 fully staffed hospital beds since October 2023.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

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