Police Post at Institute of Mental Health to Protect Staff

Ms K Thanaletchimi asked the Minister for Home Affairs whether the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) can have a police post with police vigilance to protect and safeguard the interests of IMH staff who may be threatened or subjected to physical abuse by unwell patients in a high-risk environment.

The Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs (Mr Desmond Lee) (for the Minister for Home Affairs): Madam, to maintain security and order within the hospital compound, IMH deploys Auxiliary Police Officers on a 24/7 basis. IMH also provides panic alarm tags to inpatient ward staff and equips clinic consultation rooms with panic alarm buttons. These Auxiliary Police Officers are trained to respond to incidents involving persons with mental health conditions. They are able to handle most incidents of abuse of IMH staff and will contact the Police to handle cases that they deem more serious.

From January to September 2016, IMH staff reported 12 cases of physical or verbal abuse to the Police. Police investigated these cases and prosecuted one discharged IMH former patient for unlawful stalking of an IMH staff under the Protection from Harassment Act, applied for another to be detained under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act, and administered stern or conditional warnings to six more persons. The Member can be assured that the Police will take action against abusive individuals who compromise the safety of public health workers.

Ms K Thanaletchimi (Nominated Member): Madam, just a clarification. The IMH staff have to report to the Police, but the Police Post is far away from the hospital. The inconvenience has put off some people from reporting to the Police. In the past, there has been a Police Post within the hospitals and they do the so-called procedural processes. So, can this be effected in IMH to safeguard the interests of the workers who have been already abused and yet have to travel by public transport to report the case?

Mr Desmond Lee: Madam, as I mentioned earlier, there are security officers, and in the case of IMH, Auxiliary Police Officers, trained to respond to incidents that may occur in the hospital. The Member is referring to administrative referrals or making of reports, most likely after the fact, so the staff is advised to make a Police report. That was the role of police post in hospitals in the past from the 1980s to about 2011 when MHA rationalised the resource allocation of Police Officers and these Police Posts were principally handling, as the Member mentioned, administrative tasks, such as making Police reports, the Coroners' cases, so on and so forth. Now, this can be made at NPPs, NPCs, and Police Divisions. Between Police, MOH and the restructured hospitals, including IMH, there are protocols in place and we will certainly look at the Member's concern about how we can make this more efficient and effective for the staff. We thank her for her suggestions.

Ms K Thanaletchimi: Madam, just one more question for the Minister of State. I hope that he would seriously take consideration to this request because, during our dialogue session with our union members, they actually appealed for a Police Post to be set up in IMH itself. We are not looking at all the other hospitals but in particular IMH, because there are a huge incidences of abuses by the residents there as well as the public. So, we need to protect and safeguard the interest of these healthcare workers within the premise of IMH, I hope certainly the Minister of State would take this request seriously. Thank you.

Mr Desmond Lee: Thank you.

Mdm Speaker: The next question, please, Ms Thanaletchimi.