Finding a better way than ramped up security
Opinion
Manitoba's health-care system is facing a growing and unsettling challenge: increased violence at hospitals across the province.
It's not only costing taxpayers millions of dollars more a year in increased security, it's creating unsafe working conditions for doctors, nurses and allied health staff.
Manitoba's six regional health authorities spent $35.4 million on security measures last year, according to freedom of information documents obtained by the Free Press.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
HSC Emergency entrance
It's a budget line that has been growing steadily over the past 10 years.
It includes new institutional safety officers at Health Sciences Centre, more security staff at most Manitoba hospitals and an AI-powered weapon detector at three HSC entrances.
While these measures may be necessary to preserve the safety of health-care staff and patients, the trend should trouble every Manitoban.
This is not just a matter of dollars and cents. It is a symptom of a deeper, systemic failure to address the roots of violence and instability — particularly the overlapping crises of untreated mental illness and substance use disorders.
As hospitals increasingly resemble high-security zones rather than healing environments, we must ask: What kind of society are we building, and why are we waiting until crisis hits to intervene?
Nurses and other health-care professionals report being punched, spat on, bitten and threatened with weapons. There is no denying the immediate need for security in high-risk environments like emergency departments, especially in urban centres like Winnipeg.
Violence cannot be tolerated or dismissed as 'part of the job.' But ramping up security spending — necessary as it may be in the short term — does not address the root causes of this disturbing trend. It is a reactive solution to a long-standing, preventable crisis.
At the core of the issue lies the province's ongoing struggle with mental health and addictions. Front-line workers and health-care leaders alike have consistently pointed to the growing number of patients entering hospitals in acute psychiatric distress or in the throes of drug-induced psychosis. These individuals are often not criminals in the traditional sense — they are people who have fallen through the cracks of a fractured support system.
Decades of underfunding community-based mental health care and addictions treatment have created a pipeline that leads directly into emergency rooms and correctional facilities.
Early intervention is rare. Long wait times for mental health services are the norm. Harm reduction programs and supervised consumption sites — proven tools in addressing substance use disorders — remain politically contentious or under-resourced. Manitoba has still yet to open its first supervised consumption site.
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If Manitoba hopes to make its hospitals safer — truly safer — then the response must go far beyond security contracts. The province must invest more in mental health care at the community level: crisis response teams, detox centres, transitional housing and long-term supports that help people stabilize and reintegrate.
This approach is not only more humane but also more fiscally responsible. Preventing a mental health crisis before it escalates into a violent outburst in an ER is far less costly than responding to it with guards, police and hospital lockdowns.
The safety and well-being of health-care workers should be non-negotiable. Nurses, doctors and paramedics are already operating under intense pressure. Adding the threat of physical assault only worsens burnout and deepens the staffing crisis. It sends the message that those who dedicate their lives to helping others must simply endure abuse.
That is unacceptable.
If we truly value our health-care system, we must protect those who power it not just with guards and gates but with a commitment to prevention, equity and care. That means addressing mental illness and addiction as the public health crises they are — and ensuring that Manitoba's hospitals remain sanctuaries of healing, not battlegrounds.
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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Finding a better way than ramped up security
Opinion Manitoba's health-care system is facing a growing and unsettling challenge: increased violence at hospitals across the province. It's not only costing taxpayers millions of dollars more a year in increased security, it's creating unsafe working conditions for doctors, nurses and allied health staff. Manitoba's six regional health authorities spent $35.4 million on security measures last year, according to freedom of information documents obtained by the Free Press. Ruth Bonneville / Free Press HSC Emergency entrance It's a budget line that has been growing steadily over the past 10 years. It includes new institutional safety officers at Health Sciences Centre, more security staff at most Manitoba hospitals and an AI-powered weapon detector at three HSC entrances. While these measures may be necessary to preserve the safety of health-care staff and patients, the trend should trouble every Manitoban. This is not just a matter of dollars and cents. It is a symptom of a deeper, systemic failure to address the roots of violence and instability — particularly the overlapping crises of untreated mental illness and substance use disorders. As hospitals increasingly resemble high-security zones rather than healing environments, we must ask: What kind of society are we building, and why are we waiting until crisis hits to intervene? Nurses and other health-care professionals report being punched, spat on, bitten and threatened with weapons. There is no denying the immediate need for security in high-risk environments like emergency departments, especially in urban centres like Winnipeg. Violence cannot be tolerated or dismissed as 'part of the job.' But ramping up security spending — necessary as it may be in the short term — does not address the root causes of this disturbing trend. It is a reactive solution to a long-standing, preventable crisis. At the core of the issue lies the province's ongoing struggle with mental health and addictions. Front-line workers and health-care leaders alike have consistently pointed to the growing number of patients entering hospitals in acute psychiatric distress or in the throes of drug-induced psychosis. These individuals are often not criminals in the traditional sense — they are people who have fallen through the cracks of a fractured support system. Decades of underfunding community-based mental health care and addictions treatment have created a pipeline that leads directly into emergency rooms and correctional facilities. Early intervention is rare. Long wait times for mental health services are the norm. Harm reduction programs and supervised consumption sites — proven tools in addressing substance use disorders — remain politically contentious or under-resourced. Manitoba has still yet to open its first supervised consumption site. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. If Manitoba hopes to make its hospitals safer — truly safer — then the response must go far beyond security contracts. The province must invest more in mental health care at the community level: crisis response teams, detox centres, transitional housing and long-term supports that help people stabilize and reintegrate. This approach is not only more humane but also more fiscally responsible. Preventing a mental health crisis before it escalates into a violent outburst in an ER is far less costly than responding to it with guards, police and hospital lockdowns. The safety and well-being of health-care workers should be non-negotiable. Nurses, doctors and paramedics are already operating under intense pressure. Adding the threat of physical assault only worsens burnout and deepens the staffing crisis. It sends the message that those who dedicate their lives to helping others must simply endure abuse. That is unacceptable. If we truly value our health-care system, we must protect those who power it not just with guards and gates but with a commitment to prevention, equity and care. That means addressing mental illness and addiction as the public health crises they are — and ensuring that Manitoba's hospitals remain sanctuaries of healing, not battlegrounds.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
New CancerCare facility will be world class: health minister
The province is building a new CancerCare Manitoba site that government leaders say will attract 'world-class' physicians and researchers to Winnipeg. 'In many respects, our province is doing its absolute best to deliver yesterday's care because we don't have the space to welcome the future,' Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told a news conference at the health-care agency's headquarters at 675 McDermot Ave. on Monday. 'This facility will change that.' Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara (Mikaela MacKenzie /Winnipeg Free Press files) The preliminary estimate for the project is $815 million and it's anticipated to take about four years to build. Asagwara was flanked by Premier Wab Kinew and Dr. Dhali Dhaliwal, past president and chief executive officer of CancerCare Manitoba, among others, to make the announcement. The NDP promised to expand treatment for cancer services at Health Sciences Centre during the 2023 election campaign; Dhaliwal endorsed that pledge on the campaign trail. In 2017, citing budget constraints, the former Progressive Conservative government scrapped a 300,000-square-foot expansion to CancerCare Manitoba. The project was estimated to cost around $300 million at the time. Kinew told reporters his government is 'stepping up where the previous government stepped back.' Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. The new facility will attract health-care workers and improve patient care, the premier said. He noted that the province will use tobacco company settlement funds to support the project. Manitoba expects to receive $1 billion from a class-action lawsuit, the province said in March. 'We're going to invest every single dollar in curing cancer, in fighting cancer and supporting cancer patients — every step of the way,' Kinew said. The health minister said the facility will help the province 'flex our research muscles' and host 'cutting-edge clinical trials.' Maggie MacintoshEducation reporter Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative. Every piece of reporting Maggie 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. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba's regional authorities spent over $35M last year in the ongoing effort to keep hospital workers safe
Last Christmas Eve, a man walked into Thompson General Hospital with a loaded rifle concealed in his clothing. He moved through the emergency department and other areas — some full of patients — before taking an elevator to the second-floor chapel. No one knows how long the 33-year-old man was in the facility. He was discovered by a patient who wanted to use the chapel for prayer. The patient, hearing a commotion behind the locked doors, notified a nurse. Security was nowhere to be found. They showed up only after the gunman pointed the weapon at a nurse and fired a bullet through a window. The life-threatening scenario highlights a double-barrel dilemma facing Manitoba's health-care system: how much more needs to be spent on safety measures, which has already increased exponentially in recent years, and is what's already in place making a difference? The Northern Health Region, which oversees Thompson's hospital operations, earmarked $1.18 million for security measures last year, a tenfold increase from a decade ago. 'Our security officers that we have now are untrained, incompetent individuals,' said a Thompson nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the last fiscal year, Manitoba's six regional health authorities spent a total of $35.4 million on security measures, according to freedom of information documents obtained by the Free Press. It's an expenditure that has been escalating over the last 10 years, according to the data received from each health authority, and includes equipment, call systems, staffing and contract costs for security guards. The breakdown for the RHAs — comparing spending in the 2014-2015 fiscal year to 2024-2025 — is as follows: • Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority jumped from $9,088 to more than $1.86 million. • Southern Health-Santé Sud increased from $336,911 to $1.51 million. • Prairie Mountain Health went from $678,485 to $4.69 million. • Northern Health climbed from $123,281 to $1.18 million; • Winnipeg RHA (excluding Health Sciences Centre) more than doubled from $5.26 million to $13.3 million. HSC spent $10.08 million in 2019-2020 and more than $12.8 million in 2024-2025 (only six years of data was provided for Manitoba's largest health-care facility). Experts and health officials say there are several reasons for the increase, notably enforcement of rules and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and the dramatic way in which hospitals and their staffs increasingly find themselves on the front line dealing with a variety of societal struggles. 'Higher rates of mental-health problems and addiction within our population have contributed to increases in incidents of violence and aggression in ERs and other health-care settings,' Prairie Mountain Health CEO Treena Slate said in a statement. As a result, the western Manitoba region expanded its security personnel numbers to monitor sites in Brandon, Dauphin, Virden and Russell. Cam Baldwin, the provincial protective services lead for Shared Health, attributed HSC's spending to methamphetamine and opioid-related behaviours and ailments, often encountered first by police and paramedics. 'The crimes that are being committed are often related to those dependencies and the resulting outcome of that is many of them need to be treated in hospitals,' Baldwin said in an interview. 'Unfortunately, that has created the requirement for additional security within the hospitals.' In February, the province installed AI-powered weapon detectors at three HSC entrances. The machines have detected 491 'potentially dangerous items,' such as knives thus far. BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS In February, the province installed AI-powered weapon detectors at three HSC entrances. BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS In February, the province installed AI-powered weapon detectors at three HSC entrances. The HSC campus also now employs 42 institutional safety officers, who are specially trained to restrain people and are armed with pepper gel. The province has safety officers — in addition to private security guards — stationed at St. Boniface Hospital, Victoria Hospital, Selkirk Regional Health Centre and Brandon Regional Health Centre. A spokesperson for Southern Health-Santé Sud said a formal security program for the region was not in place until 2019 when baseline funding was established. Prior to that, security was funded on an ad hoc basis. A representative of Interlake-Eastern Health said costs are a reflection of increasing use of contracted and on-staff security services in facilities 'where necessary.' Northern Health did not respond to questions regarding security costs. The pandemic exacerbated violence and security issues in health-care facilities everywhere, according to a U.S.-based security consultant and former security executive for AdventHealth, a faith-based hospital network in Florida. 'A lot of that was politically driven by masks and people not wanting to wear the mask, not necessarily for health reasons, but because they had a political spin on it,' Bill Marcisz said. 'You can imagine what happens when a loved one is passing away, or you want to go visit your son or daughter being born and you're not allowed in there.' Mental health, addictions and the stress that goes along with health care are all factors in security spending, he said, plus there has been a greater push for facilities to document incidents. As more cases are recorded, the need for security increases, Marcisz said. 'There's a lot of things that go into this,' he said. The president of the Manitoba Nurses Union agreed. 'The reality is that we've seen a lot of facilities that have become less of a strictly health-care facility… our emergency departments are seeing more and more individuals attending them because it's a safe place to be,' Darlene Jackson said. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS FILES 'A hospital health-care facility is really sort of a beacon of safety, so there are many issues that need to be dealt with,' says Darlene Jackson, President of the Manitoba Nurses Union. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS FILES 'A hospital health-care facility is really sort of a beacon of safety, so there are many issues that need to be dealt with,' says Darlene Jackson, President of the Manitoba Nurses Union. Jackson said nurses constantly tell her waiting rooms are used as makeshift shelters because homeless people either can't access a shelter due to barriers or capacity, or they don't feel safe. People often come in with minor ailments to exploit the health-care system's long wait times and spend the night in a secure building, Jackson said. 'A hospital health-care facility is really sort of a beacon of safety, so there are many issues that need to be dealt with. And until those issues are dealt with, I don't see how we can do anything else and just keep increasing security costs,' she said. 'The issue is not in our emergency department. It's beyond the doors of our emergency department.' Manitoba Health is aware some patients in ERs need alternative care and is working with Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith to redirect them to shelters and other organizations, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Thursday. Working with homeless shelters and non-profits, as well as building a supervised consumption site and sobering centre are part of the government's plan to address the issue, Asagwara said. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Health minister Uzoma Asagwara says institutional safety officers are on the way for Thompson. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Health minister Uzoma Asagwara says institutional safety officers are on the way for Thompson. 'Our priority is making sure that people have the ability to access the right care at the right place at the right time,' the minister said. 'We're working across government to make sure there are more appropriate places.' More social workers and safety officers in hospitals could also help address the issue, Asagwara said. Dan Nodrick, director of development at Siloam Mission, acknowledged that transient individuals are using health-care facilities as a safe haven or shelter and that the problem will persist without an influx of more affordable housing. Siloam's daily capacity is 143 people, but the organization stretches it to 147 nearly every day. 'Three years ago in the summertime there was always room in the shelter. We've been full for two years solid,' he said. The Thompson nurse and her colleagues have been begging health officials for the institutional safety officer program to be introduced at their hospital. Security personnel hired by the Northern Health Region don't have the ability to physically intervene, leaving many health-care workers vulnerable to violent incidents, she said. 'There's been many situations… security may come out of the office and ask me if I'm calling RCMP,' she said. 'It's often a common occurrence. 'With the multiple socioeconomic barriers and constraints in Thompson… personnel that can actually intervene appropriately, we may see a decrease in the violence that we experience every day.' Only a few days after the Christmas Eve incident, there was another frightening scene. After arriving by ambulance, a patient began hurling insults, racial slurs and threats at emergency department staff while clenching his fists. 'I stood up in front of the patient — I'm only five-foot-one — and I said, 'You are going to leave the facility and when you are ready to be respectful, you can come back,'' the nurse said. 'I'm surprised I didn't get in trouble with my employer; even though we have a zero-tolerance policy it is never enforced. We are almost expected to take the behaviour.' Asagwara said institutional safety officers are on the way for Thompson, but in the meantime, the province is looking at instituting a First Nations Safety Officer program, which will hire and train safety officers from the community to work alongside hospital security. 'Health-care workers should be able to go to work and feel safe and focus on providing the best patient care possible,' the minister said. 'So should patients and visitors.' On William Avenue earlier this week, just outside Winnipeg's downtown core, a security guard clad in a black-and-grey uniform stepped out into the evening sun from HSC's adult emergency department. She scanned the scene from left to right before taking a few steps to peek around each corner of the entrance, something that happens every 15 minutes. The HSC campus employs 42 institutional safety officers. The HSC campus employs 42 institutional safety officers. Check completed, she walked back inside, to a vestibule where her partner sat next to the AI-weapon detector. Similar, but smaller than more-familiar metal detectors used in other venues, the equipment is adorned with Shared Health's logo colours of orange, yellow, teal and green. Just beyond it, a metal-detecting wand sits on a desk with a security log book beside it. Signs at the entrance door warn visitors of the security checkpoint ahead. Hammers, guns and knives are not welcome inside but can be stored in provided amnesty lockers. 'Thank you for keeping this facility safe,' the sign states. Nicole BuffieMultimedia producer Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College's Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole. Every piece of reporting Nicole 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. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
