QEH bolstering surveillance to protect staff, patients

With shootings and other violent incidents placing increasing pressure on the healthcare system, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is preparing to expand security measures to protect its staff and patients.

Chief Executive Officer of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Neil Clark, revealed that security officers attached to the institution are expected to undergo additional training this month, while management is also preparing to introduce body cameras for personnel.

Chief Executive Officer of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Neil Clark. (LG)

Speaking to Barbados TODAY in an interview on Wednesday, while on the sidelines of the launch of Abergower, a large-scale digitisation and information management service provider, Clark said the upgrades were necessary at this time.

“Our security teams are going to be trained this month by the prison service on how to deal with difficult individuals.

“We’ll also be going for body cams so we’ve got the cameras so we can actually see what happened. I think the important thing, first of all, [is] to ensure that both the individual and the security officer are aware that incidents are being recorded, so behavior will be captured and they can respond to that,” Clark said.

The QEH head noted that management was focused on strengthening surveillance systems rather than increasing staffing numbers.

“More videos, more surveillance, so we can see what’s happening in different areas, and I think the video surveillance, the body cameras on our security teams should provide us with a good sound service,” he said.

He explained that following the completion of training and rollout of body cameras, the hospital would determine whether additional security measures are necessary.

However, Clark maintained that the current mix of internal and outsourced security personnel remains capable of managing incidents at the hospital.

“The internal team is more responsive and better trained because they’re here all the time and the outsource tends to be maybe, just maybe watching the gates and not necessarily as responsive as our internal team would be.

“So they deploy them more effectively with the internal team to do the areas that will require that kind of support,” he pointed out.

Clark also praised the hospital’s security personnel and police officers for their response during violent incidents involving patients arriving at the Accident and Emergency Department.

“They work closely with the A&E team, they respond really quickly with additional security presence around and, as I said, the police are very fast at responding,” he said.

“As soon as we have a shooting coming in, the police will turn up at the site and there will also be a physical presence to ensure that there is nobody following in to finish the job.”

Clark explained that shootings and stabbings significantly impacted operations within the hospital’s emergency department and often forced lockdown procedures to be activated.

“If there’s a shooting, we’re often going into lockdown just to make sure the area remains safe.

“The police are very good, they respond very quickly and provide support to us, but then to make sure that the staff and the patients within the department are not afraid, there’s going to be further repercussions happening within the hospital,” Clark said.

“So it does cause some concerns, but the lockdown then also slows things down again further.”

Clark acknowledged that redirecting staff during such incidents can increase waiting times for other patients, but said the measures were necessary to maintain safety and support frontline workers.

The CEO also revealed that counselling and emotional support services are available for staff exposed to traumatic situations.

“We have to look at how we support them mentally, and we do that. Our local vicar provides support, and we have access to counsellors for all our staff.

“Some of them take that immediately. From what we see, some of them take a little bit of time before they come forward for it, but we’re ready for them whenever and the team leads will try and debrief those teams and explain to them that you may or may not feel stressed at the moment or anxious at the moment,” Clark said.

(LG)