A staff member at Vancouver General Hospital is receiving treatment after being assaulted on Monday night.
Vancouver police said they were called just after 7 p.m. to a parkade adjacent to the hospital, where officers found a woman in her 40s with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Adriane Gear, president of the BC Nurses’ Union, said the staff member was a nurse and she was stabbed.
“We don’t if this was targeted, if it was a random situation,” she said. “So there’s just so many more questions.”
Police said no arrests have been made.
The Vancouver police major crime section is leading the investigation.
Gear said this incident reignites the conversation about violence in health care.
“For my members, it doesn’t just feel like it’s getting worse. We know it’s getting worse,” she added.
“When we look at WorkSafeBC statistics, if we were having this conversation a few years ago, I would tell you that 23, 25 members, nurses a month go off on a violence-related claim because it’s a very serious injury as a result of violence.
“Now that number in 2023 went up to like 46. So there’s been like, you know, a 48 per cent increase in terms of the number of serious incidents that have resulted in time lost claims.”
Gear said the nurse is recovering from her injuries.