The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) is stepping up security in response to recent violent incidents targeting healthcare workers — with plans to fill key vacancies, enhance officer training, and explore the introduction of batons and body cameras.
Chief Executive Officer Neil Clark confirmed the measures in an interview with Barbados TODAY, saying the hospital is actively recruiting to fill ten security posts and reviewing options to better equip its frontline security personnel.
The move comes amid concerns over staffing shortages, delayed training and a lack of resources for security personnel.
“There are some vacancies in the security team,” Clark said. “I think there are ten vacancies, and we’re out to recruitment for those, so hopefully that will be addressed. So, I have the posts, the posts have been approved, and I can recruit to those posts, and that’s active recruitment.”
Discussions are also ongoing about equipping security personnel with batons and restraints to improve safety for staff, patients and officers themselves.
“We’ve had discussions with the security team about batons and how they can protect themselves, protect the patients, protect the staff, about restraints, how they can restrain patients, and we’re working with our security team and with the police force to understand what the rules and regulations are pertaining to giving those services or those tools to our security team,” Clark explained.
The hospital CEO also revealed plans to introduce body-worn cameras.
“I’ve also asked about giving the security team body cams, which gives them a little bit of protection and a little bit of overview of what’s happening on the ground, and after any incident, there’s a clear indication of what happened,” he said.
The security team has been conducting security awareness sessions for nurses and staff.
“They engage with us very actively in providing some awareness sessions as to how to keep themselves safe,” Clark said, adding that improvements often stem from frontline staff.
“Any issues that the security staff have… they know my door’s open. They come and see me and we discuss this, and they’ve come forward with a number of ideas, and a number of those ideas that they come forward with, we take forward. All the ideas for any of my departments come from the staff who work within them.”
He encouraged officers to bring concerns directly to him.
Regarding the Barbados Nurses Association’s call for panic buttons on wards, Clark confirmed a review is underway.
“There’s something that we need to review about how we keep the staff safe on the wards. So that’s a piece of action that we’re in now, given the recent attack on some of the nurses on one of our wards.”
louriannegraham@barbadostoday.bb
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