An incident at Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital last week is being investigated by the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
According to Director Norm Peters, one patient with advanced dementia “inflicted very significant injuries” on another patient with advanced dementia. They are both in their seventies and were in the hospital’s mental health centre when it happened.
“This is a very rare and very tragic situation for both patients involved,” said Peters, who couldn’t comment on the cause of the attack or the extent of the injuries.
“It was serious enough that we want to review the situation so we can prevent these sorts of things from happening in the future.”
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Peters says that while the number of patients with advanced dementia are increasing, these types of situations are very rare and that staff have appropriate resources at their disposal.
“This is a specialized unit that has very high staffing level, we have very dedicated staff that work in this unit, they take extensive training in violence prevention, they have other resources available.”
Victoria Police were notified of the incident, but aren’t investigating.
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