Manitoba Nurses Union sounds alarm on ER safety in rural Westman

Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.

Union president Darlene Jackson says nurses are facing daily safety issues in the Swan Valley Health Centre emergency room. She says there's aggression and violence from patients, some of the security cameras don't work and claims at times there's no security in the emergency room.

"It's just becoming more unsafe," Jackson said. "We need to deal with these issues now."

Nurses are being assaulted, having things thrown at them, or receiving threats from patients, she says, and some dread coming into the workplace because of the uncertainty and dangers they face each day. 

She says incidents in the emergency room have continued to escalate in the community, located 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, since they first started three years ago.

These fears grew after a recent homicide in the community that led to several facilities into lockdown downtown — but the hospital remained open.

For the union, the top priorities are getting all on-site cameras working and having consistent security at the facility. Jackson says they'd also like to see an institutional safety officers in the emergency room.

For now, the emergency room is staffed by two nurses 12 hours a day, with an additional nurse working eight hours Monday to Friday. During night shifts there are only two nurses.

It's up to Prairie Mountain Health and the province to rectify these issues and to ensure nurses, other front-line workers, patients, visitors and families feel safe in the emergency room, Jackson said.

Rayna Badowski says she doesn't feel safe taking her family, including her young children aged eight and 12, to the emergency room. Her biggest concern is those who appear to be using substances making the facility unsafe.

"It's really dangerous with the people that are walking in there," Badowski said. "It's so unpredictable in Swan right now, you never know what you're going to run into at the hospital."

It's part of a larger issue in the community where, she says drug use and needle distribution have made Swan River unsafe.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, Prairie Mountain Health said the Swan Valley Health Centre has had one security member on site 24/7 since 2018.

The health authority says there's 198 staff at the hospital — including 29 that work in the emergency department.