Safety concerns ignored, Thompson hospital nurse says in letter asking health minister to help

Safety fears are mounting among Thompson General Hospital staff, where violence is a regular occurrence, a nurse says in a letter sent to Manitoba’s health minister.

“We need help ASAP,” the nurse told Uzoma Asagwara in the correspondence dated April 1, a copy of which was tabled in the legislature Monday by Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook.

“Nurses are being abused physically, verbally, emotionally and sexually on a regular basis…. The situation is worsening.”

The letter went directly to Asagwara because multiple emails and occurrence reports — including 39 about workplace health and safety concerns — weren’t being addressed by Northern Health region management, said the nurse, whose name was redacted in the tabled document.

Thompson RCMP are called on a daily basis to deal with violent incidents at the northern city hospital, wrote the nurse.

In 2024, RCMP were called to the Thompson hospital 557 times, according to a freedom of information request filed by the Manitoba Nurses Union.

On Dec. 24, RCMP responded to a report about a man in the hospital’s chapel who pointed a gun at a male nurse. Officers seized the weapon and found a bullet hole and ammunition in the chapel, police said.

No one was physically hurt but staff were rattled. The MNU has called for increased safety measures at the facility, including hiring institutional safety officers to protect staff and patients.

“That facility is incredibly unsafe,” MNU president Darlene Jackson said Monday.

“That town is getting more and more violent. There’s more and more gang and drug activity there. They desperately need ISOs there — I would think weapon scanners as well.”

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Weapon-scanning technology and institutional safety officers are in place at the Health Sciences Centre emergency department. Since the officers were placed at HSC’s ER, the number of violent incidents has dropped by 40 per cent, said Emily Coutts, the health minister’s press secretary.

Asagwara said help is on the way.

“Our target is to get those ISOs in place this spring,” the minister said Monday afternoon, noting funding for the officers at the Thompson hospital is in the budget.

The safety officers, who have the authority to restrain and detain someone, must be properly equipped, said Cook (Roblin). She pointed to a report by the MNU earlier this year suggesting that ISOs be equipped with batons and pepper spray.

“They even suggested, in some situations, that the government should consider equipping them with tasers. I think part of it is ensuring that the ISOs in place have all of the equipment they need to do their job well,” she said.

In the letter, the Thompson nurse requested panic buttons be installed for use by front-line health workers and connected to the RCMP in the northern city.

The union representing Manitoba nurses says all ERs should be safe.

“We’re hearing about Thompson because of the gun incident, but Swan River’s having issues, Dauphin’s having issues, The Pas is having issues,” Jackson said. “There’s so many facilities outside the city that are having these issues. It’s just becoming more and more prevalent.”

Providing a safe work environment is a good investment and would help retain staff, Jackson said.

“I hear from nurses all the time (who say), ‘I left because it was too unsafe’,” she said.

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.