A patient’s violent attack on a nurse in Brockville, Ont. in 2014 has resulted in a $75,000 fine for the organization that runs the facility where the incident occurred – but two unions that represent the province’s healthcare workers feel that the verdict is not harsh enough.
On Oct. 10, 2014 at the Brockville Mental Health Centre (BMHC), registered nurse Debbie Vallentgoed escorted Marlene Carter, a female patient with a violent background, to the washroom, where Carter apparently concealed a pen on her person. After exiting the washroom, she stabbed Vallentgoed in the neck and head repeatedly with the pen (COHSN, June 7, 2016). The nurse required emergency treatment.
According to a court bulletin from the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL), Carter had already assaulted other nurses at the BMHC since being transferred to the unit in Aug. 2014. A trial at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brockville later deemed that the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, which runs the hospital, had failed to reassess the risk of workplace violence following Carter’s previous attacks.
On Aug. 16 of this year, Brockville judge Richard T. Knott sentenced Royal Ottawa to pay the fine, plus a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge, after finding the employer guilty of violating Section 32.0.3(4) of the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Earlier this year, Justice Knott had acquitted Royal Ottawa on four other occupational health and safety charges related to the same incident (COHSN, May 2).
In an Aug. 17 media release, the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) charged that the province’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care needed to start investing in higher staffing levels, training healthcare managers on their safety obligations and sending a message that healthcare employers will be held responsible for their workers’ safety.
“While the $75,000 fine is substantial, it will not change this employer’s behaviour,” ONA Region 2 vice president Cathryn Hoy said in a press statement about the sentence. “Let’s stop wasting taxpayers’ money in legal fees and fines where employers such as this one fail in their duties.”
She added that Justice Knott deserved credit for issuing a tougher sentence than usual for such incidents, but that his written court decision implied that nurses were responsible for their own safety.
“Despite specifying that the risk of violence in the unit… ‘is as high [as] or higher than almost anywhere imaginable for nurses,’ the judge cited ‘employee responsibilities to use reasonable precautions… and be vigilant for the potential for violence,’” Hoy said.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) also criticized the MOL’s verdict in an Aug. 18 press release, dismissing the fine as a mere “slap on the wrist.”
“The employer has been fined, but they’re still putting people’s lives at risk,” said OPSEU president Warren “Smokey” Thomas in a statement. “Workers in mental-health facilities deal with complex, high-risk patients, and they need support to provide care and treatment in a safe environment.
“The province must take action before more frontline staff are attacked, stabbed or, worse yet, killed.”
In Ontario, healthcare workers are 68 times more likely to be injured by violent attacks than miners and construction workers are, according to information from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.