Royal group fined for attack
Nurse stabbed by mentally ill patient in October 2014
The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group has been fined $75,000 because of a 2014 attack in which a nurse in Brockville was stabbed and severely injured at the Brockville Mental Health Centre.
The Ministry of Labour said the same patient attacked “multiple” nurses between August and October of that year. The ministry laid five charges for failing to protect employee health and safety after an incident in October 2014, in which a nurse was stabbed repeatedly by a patient.
The ministry said management “failed to reassess the risk of workplace violence as required by the Occupational Health and Safety Act.” The hospital was found not guilty on four other charges for failing to protect employees from Marlene Carter, a federal inmate transferred to Brockville from Saskatchewan.
A Labour Ministry statement on Wednesday noted “multiple nurses were assaulted by the patient between August and October 2014. The court held the defendant had an obligation to reassess the risk of workplace violence and eliminate the attacks on staff.”
During the trial in May 2016, nurse Debbie Vallentgoed testified that Carter — a violent, severely mentally ill inmate — arrived at the Brockville psychiatric hospital in August 2014 with a warning that “she didn’t like blond-haired, blueeyed, left-handed white women.”
Although initially quiet and docile, she soon began assaulting staff on the floor.
Vallentgoed was responsible for “continuous observation” of Carter when she was attacked without warning while escorting Carter back to her room after a bathroom break on Oct. 10, 2014.
Vallentgoed was stabbed with a pen at least four times in the neck and head. One puncture came within a centimetre of her carotid artery, Vallentgoed testified.
Carter was restrained within seconds while another nurse helped Vallentgoed, who had worked on the ward since 1986, to safety.
Nurse Heather Hayter testified that Carter would kneel on the floor, clasp her hands behind her back, then bang her head until her forehead split open.
Assistant Crown counsel Graham Adams asked Hayter, who said she was also assaulted by Carter, how staff were prepared for Carter’s arrival.
“We were supposed to get training to help deal with her,” Hayter said. “We did not get any training.”