A retired security guard is speaking out about the challenges of working at Health Sciences Centre after his former union expressed serious concerns about the power they have to do their jobs.
Kevin Donald was a guard at HSC for nearly three decades. He said in that time, both the people coming through its doors and the policy on how to deal with a rise in violent behaviour, changed.
“Before it was like a verbal aggression. Towards the end it was physical — lashing out, kicking out, spitting, everyone spits, biting — but magnify that 50 times over when I started back in 1988,” he said.
Donald retired June 2017 and said he saw an evolution in how guards were expected to respond to possible aggression.
“Back in the ‘old days’, if medical staff directed us to escort them out, we would try the ‘please sir, ma’am come with us’.
If they started getting aggressive with a stance and fists in the air, or the feet are apart and the hands are up, then it was hands-on and it was as much force as necessary to take them out the door.”
But Donald said in the last few years, the messaging from management was to take a more hands-off approach. A change he said followed an incident where two guards were charged with assault.
“They did everything they were trained to do. They were doing everything we were instructed to do. They did it right,” he said.
Court documents show those charges were later stayed.
“We were constantly reminded… by the security management, that you could be taken to HR or disciplined for not following their directives,” Donald said. “To disengage, back off, to call police.”
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The confusion extends even higher up. The Manitoba Government Employees Union, which represents security guards, said guards at HSC don’t have any special arresting powers while Manitoba’s Health Minister Cameron Friesen insists the guards can get involved in violent incidents.
“All security officers in these facilities have the ability and are licensed to intervene and make that intervention,” Friesen said last week.
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But Donald believes what’s coming from health officials, and what’s being said on the hospital floor, conflict.
“If they investigated an incident and the officers could’ve disengaged and they didn’t they would take us to HR… if the officers should’ve engaged but didn’t they would take us to HR. For me, I can’t work under those conditions.”
Meanwhile, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has stated that they are talking with Manitoba Justice about amendments to the Mental Health Act, which would give ‘qualified persons’ the ability to pick up where police leave off.
“To be clear, these discussions relate only to the ability of security staff to take custody of patients under the Mental Health Act, and are in no way intended to seek any increased capacity for security staff to intervene in violent situations. Officers already have the ability to do that under the Criminal Code of Canada,” Amy McGuinness, communications specialist with the WRHA said.
McGuinness added that HSC security staff is regularly trained on detention and arrest and use of force policies.
The 2018 in-house training was completed in May 2018 with additional Winnipeg Police Service training happening later this year.
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