REGINA – A potentially dangerous incident in which a gun was brought in to St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon has raised concerns at the Legislature.
On its final sitting day before the winter break on Friday, NDP Health critic Meara Conway pointed to a Saskatchewan Union of Nurses post on social media about an incident on Nov. 27.
According to Conway a patient who suffered psychiatric challenges had “brought a sawed-off shotgun” into the hospital’s emergency room, along with at least three knives.
Conway also said the patient had proceeded to stab at a window in an isolation room, and had also threatened sexual assault and threatened to kill one of the staff members.
According to the SUN post on Facebook, the sawed off shotgun had been found by a housekeeper who notified one of the RNs, and that Saskatoon Police had been contacted for assistance.
“Even more concerning is perhaps the fact that we are hearing this happening more and more across the board,” Conway said.
“We know that health care is becoming increasingly chaotic, that the challenges are getting worse and the health care staff are bearing the brunt of that.”
During Question Period, NDP MLA for Saskatoon Southeast Brittney Senger grilled Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill on the issue and Cockrill did acknowledge what had happened.
“In late November there was an incident at St. Paul’s, Mr. Speaker, where an individual did bring weapons in. That individual was apprehended by SHA [Saskatchewan Health Authority] protective services. They worked with Saskatoon Police Services to ensure that safety could be restored, Mr. Speaker, at that facility.”
Cockrill also pointed to the government having added $2.5 million in the budget to enhance protective services at health care facilities across the province. He also pointed to the province adding an artificial intelligence-assisted system at Royal University Hospital to detect weapons as a pilot.
“We’ve added this as a pilot project at Royal University Hospital. It’s in its first few months. We’re evaluating the success of that and working on it so that we can look at rolling that out to more health care facilities in Saskatoon and right across the province.”
Conway made it known to reporters she was not impressed, saying she was disappointed to see Cockrill “pivot to his talking points” in Question Period rather than “take the issue seriously.”
“The health minister’s best answer is he’s going to get AI to address this. I mean this is not good enough.”
The other issue Conway noted was that a metal detector had been purchased for St. Paul’s Hospital but shipped out to another facility. “So staff are quite upset about that, because they were promised to have something like that put in place because this is something that is not a new incident.”
Conway said the immediate focus was on making sure the staff feel safe, but also acknowledged this goes beyond health care, saying that they are seeing “deep social problems” spill into the emergency room.
When Premier Scott Moe was asked about the issues at St. Paul’s Hospital, he also pointed to those other social issues as a factor.
“I would actually associate this with the work that we need to do, whether it be mental health supports or, you know, addictions recovery supports,” said Moe.
“I don't know about this instance specifically, but instances like this are all too often an example of people that are struggling with one or both of those challenges. And so, again, our goal is to offer these individuals supports, but also to enforce the law. Enforce the law when it comes to street weapons such as this. Enforce the law when it comes to dealing and possession of these poisonous drugs that are in our community. We want them out, and we're going to do our level best to invest and to work with our municipal RCMP and Saskatchewan Marshals Service to ensure that that's the case.”
