Coquitlam/Richmond -WorkSafeBC (WSBC) has levied a $646,304.88 administrative penalty to Forensics Psychiatric Hospital (FPH) also known as Colony Farms. This is the largest penalty issued by WSBC in the history of the province. The penalty covers two separate incidents involving nurses in the spring of 2018. The employer failed to maintain a safe workplace for staff and failed to assess and control the risk of violence at the site.
Colony Farms is currently housing Gabriel Klein, the man charged with the 2016 fatal stabbing of an Abbotsford Secondary Student and injuring another student. It also houses Merritt child killer Allan Schoenborn.
The union is reviewing the penalty and considering its options, including the ability to request that the penalty funds be reinvested back into safety and violence prevention solutions. The assaulted nurses remain physically and mentally traumatized and violent attacks on members and staff still occur at the site.
There are over 200 BCNU members at the Coquitlam facility who work with the most clinically challenging patients in the province and Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) must do more to protect them and other health care workers.
The Forensic Psychiatric Hospital represents the highest number of violent incidents with time loss related injuries across PHSA. The hospital has had longstanding issues related to workplace violence:
> In 2016, (FPH) received a penalty of $15,000 for failing to train supervisors and workers regarding their responsibilities related to health and safety in a timely manner. Though the fine was altered upon appeal.
> In 2014, the hospital was fined $75,000 related to the failure to instruct workers exposed to violence, assess risk and for the failure to control the risk of violence in the workplace.
> In 2012, a health care worker was stabbed in the workplace by a patient of the facility.
