New security procedures are set to go into effect this weekend in Windsor Regional Hospital's mental health ward.
The changes come after an incident last month at the Ouellette Campus where a male patient stabbed a female patient after returning from a leave outside of the ward.
A check point will be set up outside of the hospital and patients and visitors to the ward will be screened with hand held metal detectors and then escorted inside by security.
Hospital CEO David Musyj says the goal is to find a balance between public safety and the clinical impact on staff, patients and visitors.
He says the question has become, "How much security is too much?"
"Let's not go too far and create a bigger problem with respect to individuals wanting to see their loved ones who are giving birth and those types of issues. So let's balance that and focus on the issue that's in front of us. Don't do a blanket rule that applies to individuals that are not part of this at all."
Musyj says it's important to realize the stabbing was an isolated incident.
"The front line staff drove that point home. They said let's take a step back, let's not turn this into everyone walking into the hospital now has to go through a metal detector because that's not the case. Let's look at the higher risk areas."
He says the change will move any safety risk outside of the hospital.
"That does not eliminate an event like this happening. It reduces the individuals that someone could come in contact with. The world, today, is different than it was five or ten years ago and it will evolve the next five or tens years as well and we'll have to modify our procedures as we move along."
Procedures inside the mental health ward like random sweeps by drug sniffing dogs and pat down searches are already in place and will remain the same.
Musyj adds, Windsor Regional is the first hospital in Ontario to implement the new security measures.