‘If we have to grey-list every hospital… that’s what we’ll do’ Nurses union furious as St. B nurse attacked; man, 27 arrested By: Malak Abas Posted: 12:20 PM CST Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025 Last Modified: 4:17 PM CST Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025 Updates

The Manitoba Nurses Union is threatening to “grey-list every hospital” in the province after a nurse was sexually assaulted in the parkade of St. Boniface Hospital this month — the latest violent incident against a staff member at a health facility.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson confirmed Thursday the victim was a nurse.

“We talk about safety, we give examples of what needs to happen, and nothing happens until an incredibly heinous event like this happens, and suddenly the employer is putting out memos, and they’re busy fixing safety.”

Grey-listing a care facility means staff discourage other nurses from taking work at the site as a result of workplace concerns, including violence and understaffing.

“Nothing happens until an incredibly heinous event like this happens.”

In the summer, nurses voted to grey-list the Health Sciences Centre after a series of sexual assaults in and around the hospital.

Winnipeg police said the woman was assaulted around 11 p.m. on Nov. 8 by a man who had asked her the time after she got out of her vehicle.

“She was trapped between two vehicles and sexually assaulted,” the Winnipeg Police Service said in a release Thursday.

The attacker ran away when the woman screamed; security was notified and police were contacted.

Police said the nurse didn’t require medical attention.

More than four hours later, hospital security saw the accused and detained him until police arrived.

Ermiyas Isaac Dangerfield, 27, has been charged with sexual assault and was detained in custody.

In a memo sent to staff Thursday, St. Boniface Hospital president and CEO Nicole Aminot said security measures are under review.

The memo lists enhancements made to the parkade in the last two years, including key-card access to the stairwell, overnight security staff, additional mirrors, improved lighting and security cameras.

“That said, we will always consider doing more to help ensure the safety of our staff and we promise you we will do what we can to reduce the risks to our staff as much as reasonably possible,” Aminot wrote in the memo.

“We are discussing the issue with (the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority), and are already in talks with Winnipeg police to discuss neighbourhood safety and to arrange some safety presentations for staff. We want this to be a safe place for everyone.”

Jackson described the memo as “too little, too late.”

“I am sick and tired. Every employer has been reactionary,” she said.

Currently, nurses who work at the Thompson General Hospital are participating in a vote to decide whether to grey-list that facility. The vote ends this afternoon.

Jackson said she isn’t surprised union members at other hospitals are pursuing grey-list designations for their workplace.

“If we have to grey-list every hospital, every health-care facility in this province, in order for the employer and government to take safety seriously, that’s what we will do.”

At the St. Boniface Hospital parkade Thursday, staff members said they are concerned about the potential for violent incidents, which are becoming far too common across the province.

“If we have to grey-list every hospital, every health-care facility in this province, in order for the employer and government to take safety seriously, that’s what we will do.”

“I have my tracker on my phone, so my husband can find me, and a little signal that I send my sister, if, ever, somebody sketchy is around me, then she’ll follow up. If I don’t answer, then she knows, send my location, call the police,” said Kris Lyn, a lab technician student who’s finishing her studies at St. Boniface Hospital.

She said she had worked at a Dynacare lab where there were two violent assaults in a year, one of which resulted in a staff member being knocked unconscious.

“I don’t think that the systems are actually set up to keep us safe, unfortunately… it just seems like there’s been numerous assaults and the response time is just super, super long,” she said.

“Like, if the person was going to kill you, you’d be dead before anyone’s going to get there to help you.”

The Nov. 8 incident in the parkade took place four days after Dangerfield, who has an extensive criminal history, was released from custody, court records show.

He had been sentenced to three months of time served for one count of robbery under $5,000.

In March, Dangerfield pleaded guilty to one count of assault with a weapon and was sentenced to the equivalent of nine months in jail, all but 12 days of which he had already served.

Dangerfield pleaded guilty in July 2024 to two counts of sexual assault and was sentenced to four months in custody.

In 2023, a 33-year-old woman told police a man had sexually assaulted her downtown on the afternoon of June 23. At the time, police said the man said something inappropriate and grabbed the victim, who worked in the area, in an unwanted sexual manner after she declined to buy chocolate from him.

Later, police arrested a man at Graham Avenue and Donald Street; he had a bag of chocolate bars, but a police spokesman said at the time that he was not raising money for a cause.

At an August 2021 sentencing hearing for robbery and a number of administrative breaches, including breaching a bail order, a judge said Dangerfield’s crimes were tied to an untreated, chronic mental illness and drug abuse.

Charges were laid after staff members at a restaurant on the 100 block of Isabel Street declined to serve Dangerfield after closing on Feb. 18, 2021. He grabbed a tablet from a table, hit a staff member who tried to take it back, and ran away with the tablet. The woman was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

The judge noted Dangerfield likely traded the tablet for street drugs.

Dangerfield was sentenced to a year in jail, less time already served. Once released, he was subject to two years of supervised probation, banned from possessing weapons for 10 years and ordered to provide his DNA to the national database.

In 2018, Dangerfield was arrested and charged with robbery and aggravated assault after a customer was stabbed at a convenience store on the same block of Isabel Street on March 6. Police said an employee told a man to leave after recognizing him in connection with a theft one month earlier.

The customer intervened after the suspect grabbed two drinks and tried to leave, police had said. The customer, a 38-year-old man, was stabbed once by an unknown person, police said at the time.

Both suspects ran away. A canine unit tracked one of them, and Dangerfield was arrested and charged with robbery and aggravated assault. He was 20 at the time.

— with files from Dean Pritchard

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca