There were more than 3,300 complaints in the 2021\u002D22 year, with most concentrated in the Toronto area and northern Ontario.
The ombudsman’s report found staffing shortages, COVID restrictions and service delays, combined with the fatigue and trauma arising from the pandemic contributed to increased tension and occasionally violence in health-care settings.We apologize, but this video has failed to load.“Several complainants reported being restrained in an unsafe manner that is inconsistent with the standard training for security guards that could cause severe injury or death,” the report said.
Most of those incidents with security guards occurred in emergency departments, on mental health wards and at screening.Article content“Hospital emergency departments have become the crucible where many of these pressures on the health-care system ignite,” Thompson said in the report. The ombudsman said he was concerned about how hospitals responded to complaints as patient-relations representatives often deferred to security. The report raised issue with the lack of a standardized process to investigate incidents involving security and hospital reluctance to share information with patients about who was involved in the incident.
The ombudsman also found that complaints about the conduct of security guards was not routinely shared with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, which oversees security guards. The ombudsman said some hospitals undertook “comprehensive reviews” of security guard incidents. Several hospitals said they were “actively considering” a requirement for security guards to wear body cameras.
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