Union calls for change after Vancouver nurse strangled by patient – CTV
March 25, 2025
It’s the latest prominent case of a B.C. health-care worker facing violence on the job – a nurse strangled to the point of losing consciousness earlier this month.
It happened on March 13 at the Segal Health Centre, and it’s prompting the B.C. Nurses Union to call for change.
“The patient that assaulted her also assaulted another patient,” Adriane Gear, union president, told CTV News on Tuesday. “Her colleagues ended up dragging her lifeless body behind the nursing station, which was a secured area where she regained consciousness.”
This is the latest in a series of assaults on nurses including one earlier this month where a nurse was allegedly punched at Langley Memorial Hospital.
“It wasn’t that long ago that a student nurse was actually stabbed,” Gear said, referencing an incident last year. “Now, obviously not fatally, but nonetheless, a patient turned a knife on a student.”
While the province has added in-house security guards in recent years, Gear says the Segal building has only one guard patrolling it, and the guard is not permanently stationed there.
