Inquest hears COVID changed police response in medical incidents

Morash was acting in his role as cell block and street sergeant on that day and, when told of Norfield’s first issue, said he called and spoke to a nurse at the Victoria Hospital ER department.

“She advised he had been seen twice that day and he had been cleared medically twice that day. She didn’t think necessarily that he needed to come back to the hospital.”

While at the hospital the day before, a full range of tests was done and all came back normal.

Morash’s next interaction with the cell block area was when the alarm was set off just before 3 am on Dec. 2.

He was not in the station but three constables responded to the guard’s call, who thought that that the prisoner was possibly having a seizure.

“I advised them not to call ambulance. They weren’t aware necessarily that I had talked to the hospital and I wanted to come down and see for myself.”

When he got down to the cells, Morash learned Norfield had been told an ambulance would be called and responded that he would go. A verbal response did not match with Morash’s personal experience with seizures.

“I had seen a few seizures and generally speaking, they can’t answer a question. It doesn’t appear to me from my experience that it was a seizure,” he said.

PAPS can house as many as 6,600 detainees in a year and about 80 per cent of the time, the person arrested is under the influence of either drugs or alcohol.

The most common way for a prisoner to attempt to leave the cells is to claim they are having chest pains and the second most common method is to have a seizure, he said.

Morash watched along with one of the guards on a monitor as Norfield fell off the toilet, banged his head on the wall and lay next to the bunk.

Guards have two ways to watch prisoners, on a monitor that shows all the occupied cells or by going down to the cell in person and looking through a small window.

Norfield got a cut on his head from hitting the wall but Morash said it didn’t look like it needed immediate attention.

He called Parkland Ambulance to see if they could do an in-cell assessment and was told that no, they don’t do that. They could transport the person to the hospital, though.

Neither guards nor officers can run the video surveillance of the cells backwards to see previous events.

When asked, Morash said that officers are not provided with medical training.

Given that it was the height of the pandemic and vaccines were not yet available and distancing was the best way to manage transmission, he decided to leave Norfield in his cell as he was positive for COVID.

“(You’re) trying to balance and juggle how many mor people we put at risk for what might be a medical emergency, and what might not be a medical emergency,” he said.

COVID and pandemic restrictions have been part of the inquest since the start as Norfield was in police cells because he had violated mandatory isolation requirements after testing positive.

Police had been tasked with holding non-compliant people until they could be taken to the hospital for assessment and then occasionally needed to be taken to North Battleford for guarded isolation.

On Nov. 28, Norfield had been in contact with police officers and all of those officers were listed as close contacts for COVID. The officer who transported Norfield from Georgie’s Liquore Store downtown to the cells later tested positive for COVID as well.

In addition to trying to manage the health risks to officers and staff, Morash said he knew that the hospitals were overwhelmed with patients and didn’t want people there for being intoxicated or high, an issue that predates the pandemic and continues today.

He said prisoners under the influence can be “aggressive, assaultive” and are a safety risk that the police are meant to manage.

“If you send an aggressive addict to emergency, you’re putting the nurses and doctors at risk. The hospital is overwhelmed. They would like to keep as many of those people outside as possible. That puts pressure back on the police.”

A welcome change made by PAPS and Sask. Health in May 2021 was to station a senior paramedic from Parkland Ambulance in the PAPS cell block from 7 pm to 7 am daily.

The paramedic will check blood pressure, blood sugar and pupils of prisoners and can do so through the tray slot.

“It’s just huge,” Morash said of the change. “If a paramedic tells me he needs to go to the hospital, he goes to the hospital.”

Following his testimony, the jurors heard from Brendin St Amand, a 12 year veteran of the Parkland Ambulance.

He was one of two responders that arrived at the PAPS cells on Dec. 2 to pick Norfield up for his scheduled transport to the hospital for a COVID assessment.

St. Amand said they noted his lowered ability to communicate and took his vitals which were stable. Norfield had lower levels of blood oxygen but that is common with COVID patients.

After moving the sensor on his finger, the numbers went to normal. They also treated his head wound.

“He didn’t look cyanotic or anything. By that, it means he would be striving for air,” St. Amand explained.

The wound was not actively bleeding but Norfield was confused and not talking much.

As is normally the case, ambulance staff did not get much information about the inmate from police. Sometimes, they provide a brief history of the patient.

The discretionary inquest will resume tomorrow.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Inquest hears COVID changed police response in medical incidents

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