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It was Sarah Slaunwhite’s job to supervise the young man who had jumped off a bridge.

The 27-year-old Dartmouth resident was only a couple of months into her job as a security guard at Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre. The man had attempted suicide and arrived at the hospital last summer and Slaunwhite was tapped to do her first “Patient Sitter” shift.

“I just remember feeling so badly for this man,” recalled Slaunwhite of the experience. The man was injured and alone in this hospital room. “He’d fall asleep and then wake up in a panic.”

She also knew that the man had arrived at the hospital’s emergency room the evening before, distraught and threatening to commit suicide. He had been discharged after being evaluated by a psychiatrist, she said.

“It’s just really sad that it took someone to do that before they say, ‘Yes, he really does need help.’”

'The blame fell on me'

That was her first of many glimpses into the shortcomings of mental health care at the hospital. But it was also one of many occasions where she felt under-trained in dealing with patients coping with serious mental health conditions. She lasted nine months at the hospital and endured assaults by patients before quitting her job with Paladin Security in February.

Slaunwhite says she’s since been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and has frequent nightmares reliving her experiences at the hospital.

She says she was assaulted by a patient in November after being called to assist a nurse trying to restrain a man with dementia. The man was refusing to accept his intravenous. Company policy says in such situations three guards are supposed to attempt to restrain a violent patient. But at the time none of the nine officers on duty at the hospital were available. Hospital security guards are not permitted to carry weapons and Slaunwhite is only five-foot-two inches tall and weighs 120 pounds.

“He was trying to pull his IV so I got sent myself. I had to help the nurse hold down his arms. He had been in the military so he was quite strong and I got elbowed quite a few times in the head and knees. The nurse was also struck several times.”

Slaunwhite filed a workers’ compensation claim and also reported the incident to her supervisor at Paladin. But she said she was blamed for the incident and offered no support.

“The blame fell on me. I should have asked for another nurse’s help but I didn’t ask because it’s our duty to assist nurses. I felt like I would be in the wrong. There was no one else available.”

She was injured a second time trying to restrain a man who arrived at the emergency room overdosing and hallucinating.

“He ended up grabbing my wrist and twisting it. The blame was put on me because I didn’t redirect him properly. I was told I placed my hands in the wrong area and allowed him to grab them.”

She said the mental health training she and officers did receive from Paladin was minimal and lasted for only one day. Training focused on verbal communication with people with mental illness and non-violent crisis intervention.

“We were told we would see things we would want to unsee.”

She made only $11.35 per hour.

Another scary ordeal happened when she said a convicted killer showed up at the emergency room. Slaunwhite said her colleagues found out about his criminal past on Google but had not been warned.

“He kicked the door and ended up dislodging a bolt from the door. When we arrived to his room he said, ‘You know what I did and I’ll do it again.’”

Regularly, she witnessed the psychiatric evaluation rooms filling to capacity and people would be waiting for help for hours. Some would simply walk out, she said.

Paladin's response

Matthew Davis, Halifax branch manager for Paladin Security, said all employees undergo industry-leading training throughout their career with Paladin, “including specific courses for health-care positions that includes the challenges that could be encountered within the environment.”

He also said Paladin Security officers working in hospitals are trained in team engagement strategies and “that it’s not the expectation of Paladin that a security officer engage with a violent individual or patient on their own without the support of a larger team.”

Carla Adams, spokeswoman with Nova Scotia Health Authority, said the health authority “cares about the health and safety of our patients and their families but also the safety and well-being of those who work in our organization.” She said staff meet with Paladin supervisors twice a month but offered no detail about how individual guards are monitored.

In the end, Slaunwhite says more needs to be done to support hospital security guards. That includes better training.

“I just think hospital security guards are being forgotten in this whole conversation about our health-care crisis. We need to be trained to deal with people with mental health conditions because they’re not all the same.”

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