Arlene Tedjo was working in the emergency department of Kamloops’ Royal Inland Hospital on Saturday when RCMP were called to respond to a man whose behavior Tedjo says escalated to the point where it was dangerous and unmanageable. In an interview with CTV News Channel she described her experience. At first, the patient was unresponsive, but was awakened by Tedjo. A few minutes later, when he passed by the incident unfolded. “This person deliberately waited until I was walking past to kick my leg with the intention of tripping me,” he said, adding that he almost hit another colleague. “I tripped and then he said, ‘I don’t know how they do things in your country,’ implying, firstly, that I’m not from that country and that I’m racist about my level of education and professionalism… angry and offended because firstly, I’m Canadian and trained as a Canadian nurse. It doesn’t matter if I was born here or not.” Kamloops RCMP confirmed they were called to the hospital for reports of an assault and arrested a man. Tedjo says the man was in stable condition at the time. He has since been released on a promise to appear in court at a later date. Interior Health told CTV News via email that the incident took place in the emergency room and involved “one patient and two staff members.” “Staff members received on-site support and completed their shifts as planned for the day,” the health authority said. “Procedures are in place to deal with such incidents and monitoring continues.”
“SICK AND TIRED OF WORKING IN SAFE CONDITIONS”
But Tedjo says the incident is indicative of the dire and widespread issues plaguing the province’s health care system as a whole, saying frontline staff are facing ever-increasing pressures. This weekend, for example, he says the department was operating at just over 50 percent of required staffing. “We’re all working over time. We’re understaffed. We’re understaffed every day. We’re going through a global pandemic, through extreme heat waves, another wildfire season — on top of that, we’re being verbally abused and physically abused, which is unfortunately not new “, he said. “We’re sick and tired of working in dangerous conditions and we can’t take it any longer to be the one on whom everything falls.” The shortage of nurses is an issue Tejdo points to, exacerbated by the fact that nearly a million British Columbians do not have a family doctor. The lack of accessible, available primary care, he says, is putting more pressure on emergency departments. Additionally, the closing of emergency departments in smaller communities means more patients are forced to go to cities like Kamloops to seek care. “Many health workers are compensating for systemic failures that have been going on for a long time,” he said. “So after that happened, I had to pick myself up, keep working because there were a lot of people that still had to show up and we were short staffed.” He also said he is hearing from colleagues across the country working in similarly stressful and increasingly unsustainable conditions. “It’s the same story of disrespect, verbal abuse, physical abuse, burnout, understaffing issues,” he said. “It’s part of the reason why we have department closures across the country and why health care staff are leaving at higher rates than ever before.” In a tweet, former Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Alvin Tedjo, who is running for Mississauga city council, said he was shocked and angered by the incident — wishing he could do something to help thousands Kilometers away.
My sister was attacked last night while breastfeeding in the ER, she was also told to “go back to your country” 😡 I’m so mad right now and I can’t do anything about it. She called to say she was fine but was agitated. It’s not okay, the police blame. #NurseTwitter pic.twitter.com/dpWieBMcVi — Alvin Tedjo (@AlvinTedjo) August 7, 2022
