Review underway into how patient left psychiatric hospital
Posted Jan 12, 2015 06:29:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
After a patient was able to leave the East Coast Forensic Hospital without leave over the weekend, Capital Health says it will be reviewing the incident.
Dr. Aileen Brunet, clinical director at the East Coast Forensic Hospital, said Monday it’s standard procedure for a review to be undertaken in these circumstances.
“Whenever there is an incident of someone being absent without leave we do have — in house — a clinical review of the situation, and then at times, there’s also the quality review,” she said.
Brunet couldn’t say much else.
The patient, Mark Balzter left the parking lot of the hospital Saturday night in his own vehicle at about 8:30 p.m.
Police found him Sunday in Five Islands — about 150 kilometres away — at 3:30 p.m.
Brunet says the hospital’s policies worked well to find Balzter.
“We followed them once the leaving without permission was detected, police were notified, and Mr. Balzter was returned to the hospital,” she said.
Brunet says Balzter had some community access, meaning he was allowed to leave sometimes, but not this time.
“We are focused on community integration and reintegration for our patients,” she said. “So there are times where people need to have community access in order to ultimately ideally return full-time to the community.”
Brunet couldn’t say how long the review would take, but the results will not be public.
Capital Health spokesperson Everton McLean said they would try to tell the public some details, but the legislation puts the results in a sealed document.
