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Hospital to review security procedures after murder on grounds

The North Bay Psychiatric Hospital will review security matters and the way “we do business” in light of a murder on its grounds Friday night, chief psychiatrist Dr. Susan Adams says.



















The North Bay Psychiatric Hospital will review security matters and the way “we do business” in light of a murder on its grounds Friday night, chief psychiatrist Dr. Susan Adams says.

A patient in the hospital, 56-year-old Rita Quinlan, was found dead in a bushy area of the hospital grounds near Roy Drive, after the North Bay Police Service responded to a missing persons call.

Foul play is suspected and police have a 22-year-old woman in custody, although charges have not been laid, said Inspector Mark Montgomery.

The suspect was also a patient at the hospital, he added, and knew the deceased.

“This is the most serious incident that could occur in a psychiatric facility,” Dr. Adams told baytoday.ca Saturday.

“We’re going to want to very carefully review what happened, look closely at the procedures we have in place to deal with serious incidents and examine the way in which we do business.”

Degrees of latitude
Adams declined to provide any personal or medical information about either of the patients, citing medical confidentiality laws.

Police could not say whether Quinlan and the suspect were trying to leave the hospital when the death took place.

But Adams said most of the hospital’s patients do enjoy “some degree of latitude” when it comes to venturing outside their wards.

“Most of the patients are here voluntarily and people do have increasing degrees of freedom with their ward privileges,” Adams said.

“We try to provide care in the least restrictive environment we can, and we do grant graduated levels of off-ward privileges if patients seem to be improving in terms of their clinical conditions.”

Hospital to conduct internal review
Adams admitted there have been occasions when patients have left the hospital illegally.

“Of course incidents such as that happen from time to time and we obviously have a process that we follow in those instances as well,” Adams said.

While the hospital will be conducting its own internal review, Adams said she wasn’t sure whether the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care would become involved in the inquiry.

The hospital is cooperating with the police investigation, Adams said, but is also trying to help staff and patients cope with the incident.

Opportunity to talk
“Our primary focus has been to try to provide emotional support to patients and staff, for all of whom this has been a shocking and distressing event,” Adams said.

A “critical incident stress debriefing process” is now underway at the hospital, Adams said, which will include pastoral care from the facility’s chaplain.

“It gives people the opportunity to talk about their feelings about what happened,” Adams said, "and it gives permission to people to kind of express themselves.”