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June 22, 2016 – The Ottawa Hospital is focusing on fostering a culture of staff safety and injury prevention. This includes many initiatives to prevent violence against health-care workers. We believe our staff members must feel comfortable and safe in their workplace to provide safe, high-quality care for our patients.
We have improved our violence prevention strategies by offering more training, increasing security presence, developing safety policies and processes, and improving security features in high-risk areas. We flag patients with a history of violent incidents so that front-line workers have the information they need to make risk assessments and prevent incidents.
We encourage staff to report incidents or safety issues, and encourage open conversation about safety through our Joint Health and Safety committees, our internal publications, and recently, through open forums held at each campus.
Despite our hard work and focus, sometimes we do still see violence at our hospital. These incidents are difficult and traumatic for the staff involved, and we strive to offer as much compassion and support as we can to support their recovery. We review serious incidents to learn what happened, what should have happened, and what can be improved.
The Ontario Ministry of Labor has conducted visits to the hospital for seven separate incidents of violence between 2011 and 2015. In addition, the Ministry has conducted safety inspection blitzes at all Ontario hospitals, including The Ottawa Hospital.
We are constantly looking for ways to keep our people safer, and will continue to take action alongside our unions and government partners.
To learn more about this important topic, please visit the following links: