Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993 TAG: 9311100183
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
The August incident ended 10 minutes later, when a doctor talked the woman into surrendering her weapon.
Hospitals nationwide are increasingly under siege by gun-toting visitors, grudge-carrying relatives and disgruntled patients, prompting the industry to take a close look at security.
While the Virginia incident ended peacefully, attacks elsewhere haven't turned out as well.
In Tennessee, a pharmacist who believed his 2-year-old grandson had been beaten into a coma by his daughter's fiance shot the man to death as he slept in a hospital waiting room in January 1986.
A woman who complained she had been mistreated by doctors fatally shot a mental health caseworker and took three people hostage in Pittsburgh's St. Francis Medical Center in February 1988.
A man carrying dynamite and two guns shot and killed a nurse before releasing nine hostages during a 17-hour standoff at a hospital maternity ward near Salt Lake City in September 1991. He held a grudge against a doctor who had operated on his wife two years earlier to prevent her from becoming pregnant again.
This past summer, a woman who claimed her mother had been "butchered" opened fire at a Detroit hospital, wounding two technicians.
"Crime in our nation's hospitals is a fairly good reflection of the crime in the communities they serve," said V. James McLarney, who heads the health facilities management division for the Chicago-based American Hospital Association. The group represents about 5,000 hospitals in the United States.
"Hospitals are unique in that you cannot lock them down, mostly because of fire codes and requirements for quickly moving patients," he said.
McLarney served on a national task force that looked at security issues facing hospitals. Among the group's recommendations: aggression management training for hospital workers, special response teams, patient searches, closed-circuit surveillance and limiting entrances to a few that are easily monitored.
The task force found that most hospital violence occurs in emergency rooms and psychiatric units. Also, hospital trauma centers in urban areas experienced more violence than those centers in rural areas. But that doesn't mean small-town hospitals are immune from the problem.
"Charlottesville isn't the sleepy, quiet town that it was 20 years ago, and we all need to be reassessing our responsibilities to ensure our own security," said Dr. Richard A. Christoph, medical director of UVa's emergency department.
A number of psychiatric residents are requesting metal detectors in the emergency room, but Christoph doesn't believe detectors are the answer.
The time it takes to stop for a metal detector could mean the difference between life and death for a critically ill patient. Then there's the question of patients' rights.
"Maybe metal detectors are an integral part of the way that we will deal with this, but it isn't just metal detectors," Christoph said. "Some of it is protocols, some of it cross-training, some of it is continuing education, some of it is reminding employees to assume some of the responsibility for their own safety."
UVa has hired a security consultant to make recommendations for improving security.
"In emergency rooms in particular, we have such a different group of people that come through that door," said UVa Police Chief Michael Sheffield.
"You have someone who's ill and needs emergency care. You can have a domestic situation spilling over in the emergency room. You can have a stabbing or knifing victim who's bringing in mixed baggage," he said.
The hospital never reported the August incident to police, said Sheffield, adding that he learned about it in later conversations with hospital officials.
Marge Sidebottom, administrator of emergency services, said she doesn't know why police weren't called.
Sheffield offered this explanation: "People involved in health care sometimes feel like they're there to help people, so they view those types of incidents and deal with them, and the impact doesn't hit them until later. We could have had a tremendous situation here."
The UVa hospital now offers joint training for officers and hospital workers. Health-care providers are briefed on the role of the police and how they can help officers gain control of a potentially explosive situation. Police are educated about the goals of the patient-physician relationship, mental health counseling and crisis intervention.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB