Hospitals across Canada installing weapons detection systems amid apparent rise in ER violence

Over the past six months alone, health care workers have been stabbed, physically assaulted and told to run for shelter as bullets struck the outside of an emergency department in unrelated safety incidents at hospitals across Canada.

Front-line workers say these violent events offer just a small glimpse at life behind ER doors, where verbal and physical violence appear to be rising, putting both patients and staff at risk. Primary among the concerns is the increasing presence of weapons – particularly knives.

In response, some hospitals across Canada have installed weapons detection systems. The technology uses artificial intelligence to screen for and identify weapons, such as knives or guns, while distinguishing them from keys and other everyday items. Illegal weapons are then confiscated, while legal weapons can be stored and returned when a patient leaves the hospital.

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London, Ont., is one of the latest cities to adopt the system. University Hospital started using it last month, and Victoria Hospital, where a shooting occurred in the ER bay last December, will begin operations on Tuesday.

David Musyj, supervisor of London Health Sciences Centre, the city’s hospital network, said there had been conversations for months about installing the detection system in London but that the shooting was the “final straw.” By January, LHSC had signed a lease with Convergint Canada for the equipment.

“If we can reduce even one incident from happening, that’s a big one,” Mr. Musyj said.

The first hospital in Canada to install the detection system was the Windsor Regional Hospital in October, 2023. Roughly 10 weapons a year were detected prior to the system being implemented. In the 18 months that followed, more than 4,000 items were found, roughly 50 per cent of them knives, in addition to items such as brass knuckles and drug paraphernalia.

Mr. Musyj said Windsor, Ont., is now starting to see a decrease in the prevalence of weapons, dropping to about seven detections a day from 17 when the system was first installed. He acknowledged that the detector alone will not prevent all violent incidents from occurring, but it is another tool that helps reduce the chances of harm.

“I use this analogy called the Swiss cheese model. You have to picture a bunch of slices of Swiss cheese lined up, one on top of the other. One is this device. The other is security guards. The other is security cameras,” he said.

“They might get through the first piece of Swiss cheese … but eventually they’re going to hit a wall. One of these items is going to prevent the wrong action from happening.”

Nurses’ unions across the country have been raising the alarm for years about the need for stronger security measures. The call has grown louder after recent incidents, including a nurse strangled unconscious at Vancouver General Hospital last month and two health care workers stabbed at the Halifax Infirmary in January.

Advocates have stressed that violent events are taking a mental and physical toll on front-line workers, yet employers and government are not doing enough to curb the crisis. Those working in ERs are particularly vulnerable because of overcrowding, limited staffing and increasingly complex patients, a growing number of whom are seeking care for mental health or substance use.

Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, said the organization’s first campaign to eliminate violence in the health work force was in 1991. Still, decades passed before the Criminal Code was amended to enhance protections for health care workers in 2022. Progress, she stressed, is slow.

“Hospitals should be the place where you go and receive care and your family and friends should be welcome. And, now, you’re seeing nurses’ unions in discussions with government and employers that we need to be as protected as a government building,” Ms. Silas said.

A nurse in Winnipeg, whom The Globe and Mail is not naming because of concerns that speaking publicly would affect her employment, was threatened by a patient with a knife roughly a decade ago. She still thinks about that day.

She said a patient recently attempted to grab trauma shears from a nursing desk.

The long-time nurse said workplace violence complaints are often minimized by upper management. But there are practices in place at Manitoba hospitals to minimize the potential for harm: Workers have safety huddles twice daily and mark patient files with a symbol that indicates a person has been violent toward staff.

She is considering transferring out of the ER to another unit.

The Manitoba Nurses’ Union, in a February report, highlighted that the Health Sciences Centre hospital campus in Winnipeg had the second-highest rate of violent crime in the city as of August, 2024, according to police data. At that hospital alone, nurses reported 64 verbal or physical assaults between September and early January.

“These numbers are alarming, yet they likely underrepresent the true scale of the issue,” the report said. Among the union’s recommendations is to expand the use of AI scanners to health care facilities across Manitoba.

In British Columbia, workplace violence is a leading cause of injury to nurses. Adriane Gear, president of the BC Nurses’ Union, said, on average, nurses file about 46 claims monthly to WorkSafeBC because of violence that requires them to take time off work for mental health or physical injuries. There were about 26 claims monthly in 2018.

“Nurses have a very high tolerance for disrespectful and abusive behaviour, but where it’s gotten to is that’s just become the expectation,” said Ms. Gear. “What people aren’t getting is that if it’s not safe for the nurse, or the other health care workers, it’s not safe for patients either.”