A photo taken of Herb Bassett home on Monday. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Public safety

Incident involving threats against P.A. care home residents under review

Oct 2, 2019 | 2:04 PM

Representatives from a local health care union are meeting this week with officials from the Saskatchewan Health Authority to discuss an incident that happened last weekend at the Herb Bassett care home.

Early Sunday morning, two men tried entering the special care home and, according to a witness, threatened to kill the staff and residents. Sandra Seitz, President of CUPE 5430, told paNOW the union takes the health and safety of its members and the residents very seriously.

“We will continue to work with the employer to implement safety measures to deal with incidents of this nature,” she said.

Seitz would not elaborate on what specific recommendations they were discussing this week, but explained the union representatives heard a number of safety concerns related to the hospital and care home area.

“It’s safe to say we are hoping some of the solutions that are coming out from this week will be implemented in other areas, and even across the province,” she said.

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Nicole Rancourt, member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Prince Albert Northcote, told paNOW she too had heard a number of concerns related to safety concerns at Victoria Hospital.

“Some people didn’t feel too safe going to their cars… and I’ve heard from staff at the hospital that there were concerns of individuals potentially trying to spend the night there because of homelessness,” she said.

Rancourt acknowledged the Ministry ot Health implemented some safety protocols to mitigate the crime, including having the hospital’s security staff walk concerned hospital staff to their cars late at night, but she added she feels more could be done.

“We need to do a lot more to address the addictions and mental heath issues because we know that’s what the root cause to the homelessness and violence is,” she said.

The two men charged in connection to last Sunday’s incident remain in custody and have pending court dates next week. There is no indication at this stage regarding the motivation of the alleged incident.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell