Although the recent shotgun incident at St. Paul’s Hospital gained a significant amount of attention, hospital staff say this is not an isolated incident. 

On November 27th, a psychiatric patient brought a shot gun and several knives into the emergency department before threatening to sexually assault and kill a staff member.  

Melissa McGilvary, a registered nurse at St. Paul’s, says another weapon was seized on Sunday, December 7th, and verbal threats occur daily.  

 “Just this morning, I reached out to somebody who works in the community, and they told me about a knife being pulled on a health care worker at Market Mall two weeks ago, so it’s not even unique to hospitals.”

She admits that one of her co-workers is going on leave because of the November 27th incident. 

“It’s impacted their mental health enough that they don’t feel capable of being at work right now, which is a pretty sad state of affairs, especially when we have a real shortage of health care workers in this province, and we need all the frontline workers we have.”

McGilvary spoke alongside the NDP Monday morning, calling for an emergency plan to address these acts of violence in the healthcare system. She adds that a strategy to address hard drug use, better housing and homelessness resources, and affordable groceries would have a positive impact on community violence. 

She and NDP Labour Critic Nathanial Teed say a metal detector would be a great safety enhancement at St. Paul’s. Teed says the hospital was supposed to receive one, but it did not have enough security officers employed to qualify. Instead, metal detectors were allocated to Royal University Hospital, Regina, and Prince Albert.