Officials at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital say staff are seeking reduced hours of work or leaving altogether because of harassment by the public.
Ray Racette is the President and CEO says this year has definitely been worse than last year.
“When we look at 2021 compared to 2020, with verbal abuse and assault to staff, that’s up 300 per cent, which is a very significant number, and again I think it’s probably under-reported so it’s even bigger than 300 per cent, ” explains Racette.
“Physical abuse is up 25 per cent.”
He says in some cases it’s caused employees to change their scope of work, work part-time, or leave altogether.
“Well, we had one physician in Emerg(gency) whose life was threatened, decided not to do any emergency medicine anymore. So that happened several months ago, but that happened and it was directly for that reason.”
Racette says the incidents of harassment complaints and assaults are highest in the Emergency Room because it’s open 24/7 and the area of first access.
He suggests COVID fatigue is partly to blame for the increase.
