N.W.T. hospital's security rules questioned

Yellowknife RCMP and Stanton Territorial Hospital are at odds over security procedures, after police had to search for the same psychiatric patient twice this week.

The 19-year-old male patient from Fort Smith, N.W.T., walked away from the Yellowknife hospital on Monday and Wednesday evenings, resulting in the RCMP being called to look for him.

On both occasions, the man returned to the hospital, on his own, a few hours after disappearing.

RCMP say Wednesday's case marked the 16th time in the last six months that the hospital called them in to locate missing patients.

Most of those cases involved involuntary psychiatric patients who, as was the case this week, went missing after they went on unsupervised smoke breaks, according to police.

"To some extent the RCMP is being used as security for the hospital," Sgt. Brad Kaeding told CBC News on Thursday.

"Perhaps what needs to be done is a little tightening of their own monitoring processes, and that is something I know they are looking at."

Bound by regulations

But hospital staff are bound by strict rules when it comes to monitoring psychiatric patients, said Kay Lewis, head of the Stanton Territorial Health Authority.

"They have to [meet] all three criteria of presenting a danger to themselves or others, that they are refusing treatment and suffering from a mental illness," Lewis said.

"So there's very strict criteria, and that's the criteria on which we can hold someone as an involuntary patient."

Patients who do not meet those criteria, as well as pass a doctor's assessment, are free to move around the hospital unattended, Lewis said.

"This is psychiatric assessment, and you do absolutely the best. These are highly trained professionals that are doing that," she said.

"We have very clear legislation and guidelines to work within that. However, we can't always predict and control behaviour."

Search for missing woman resumes

Lewis said she cannot comment on the discussions that hospital officials have had with RCMP about security, since she was not directly involved in those talks.

Meanwhile, Kaeding said RCMP are resuming their search for Angela Meyer, a 22-year-old psychiatric patient who has been missing since Nov. 27, 2010.

Meyer, who has schizophrenia and Type 2 diabetes, had been visiting her family on a hospital weekend pass when she disappeared from their downtown Yellowknife home.

Her family launched an independent search effort in January, after the RCMP called off official search efforts before the holidays.