Emergency Department incident – Themes from internal debriefings and early next steps
While Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) has resumed normal service in its Emergency Department (ED) following a critical incident involving a weapon the night of October 27th, internal healing will take much longer.
To support that process, NHH leadership have worked this week with Chief of Cobourg Police Services Kai Liu, volunteer chaplain Andrew Truter and the hospital’s Employee and Family Assistance Provider to facilitate a series of internal ‘emotion’ debriefings for those directly involved and for those who were not involved but who are, nevertheless, affected.
Eight sessions were held between October 31st and November 1st, with President and CEO Linda Davis, NHH Chief of Staff Dr. Mukesh Bhargava and NHH ED physicians Francesco Mulé and Jared McMillan supporting facilitation.
“As hard it has been to see and express the raw emotions felt after a traumatic incident like the one our hospital experienced the night of October 27th, it has also been helpful to begin the process of releasing some of those emotions,” said President and CEO Linda Davis. “Titles and roles were not relevant to these discussions. It was a chance for us to highlight one common bond: we’re human and we’re hurting, each in our own way, and we need to talk it though.”
Key themes
The presence of an active shooter inside the Emergency Department is new territory for NHH and, in fact, most hospitals in Canada. The following emerged as common themes from the eight internal debriefing sessions:
- support for those affected;
- security;
- information/communication; and
- training/education.
Sharing the themes internally was described by Davis as “the first step in the development of a go-forward plan.”
Some of this work is already under way, the first example being an expanded contract with NHH’s existing Security provider, G4S Security, to increase NHH coverage to include an additional 24/7 Security Guard in the ED beginning this month. This new dedicated Emergency Department Security Guard will have the highest level of training available in private security protection.