The president of the United Nurses of Alberta is calling for quicker installation of weapons scanners at urban hospitals, saying her members face “threats of violence almost daily.”

Heather Smith’s call follows a stabbing last week in the emergency department at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital that left a 42-year-old man requiring treatment for life-threatening injuries.

Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones said after the attack that his government is working to speed up the implementation of weapons screening at the hospital and that the facility has increased its security personnel.

But Smith accused Jones of underplaying the seriousness of the threat, saying in a letter to the minister that the UNA has strongly advocated since 2023 for a weapons detection system at the Royal Alexandra and other Alberta hospitals with busy emergency departments.

She said hospitals in other provinces already have them, and she’s also calling for the province to guarantee funding for protective services officers at all of Alberta’s emergency departments.

‘Frustrated, frightened’

Smith further called it a “dangerous situation” that also requires the government to acknowledge that the violence in emergency departments is linked to overcrowding and lack of capacity.

“Frustrated, frightened patients and their families having to wait hours in packed emergency departments will inevitably lead to tense situations and outbreaks of violence. The best way to eliminate the problem is to build the capacity that Alberta requires,” Smith wrote Thursday in her letter to Jones.

Edmonton police said its patrol officers who were already at the hospital on April 3 noticed two men fighting around 6:15 p.m. and stepped in.

Police said one of the men was found with three edged weapons and faces charges, including assault with a weapon and two counts of failing to comply with probation.

Jones has said four Alberta Health Services protective services officers assigned to the emergency department were also on-site at the time.

No hospital visitors, patients or staff were injured, police said.

Last year, the Manitoba government announced it was providing $2.3 million for the fiscal year to go toward funding two police officers at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre 24 hours per day, and for the addition of five new weapon-detection scanners at the hospital’s main public entrances.

The move came after nurses made the rare decision last August to declare the hospital too dangerous to work in, otherwise known as “grey listing.”

Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government announced in January a review into hospital security while installing metal detectors in some emergency rooms, and Nova Scotia Health introduced an AI weapons detection screening system the following month at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital’s emergency room as part of a provincewide effort to enhance safety at hospitals.

Jones said last week that the request for proposals for a weapons screening program for the Royal Alexandra has closed, and the government is “working to accelerate implementation timelines.”

“We recognize that incidents like this are unsettling. No one — patients, staff or physicians — should feel unsafe in our hospitals,” the minister said in a social media post.

Smith said a UNA survey of members last year found that four in 10 nurses experienced physical violence in the previous 12 months, which included being hit or punched.

“This isn’t a one-off,” Smith said in an interview of the Friday attack in Edmonton. “This is not new.”

Weapons screening, security measures

Kyle Warner, a spokesman for Jones, said in an email that implementation of the weapons screening program for Royal Alexandra Hospital is now planned for May, and that expansion of weapons screening technology and additional security initiatives are being evaluated across emergency departments.

Warner noted that on top of more than $130 million that’s allocated to AHS protective services annually, an additional 101 protective services staff are being hired across the province.

Millions are also being spent to expand emergency departments and strengthen acute care capacity across the Alberta, Warner said.

“Alberta’s government takes safety in emergency departments seriously and is committed to addressing harassment and violence in our hospitals,” Warner wrote.

“No patient should feel unsafe while seeking care and no staff member should be exposed to violence or intimidation in the workplace.”