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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. The'd be

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Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Do we need to give more powers and equipment to

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Speaker 2: hospital security guards? One hundred and eighteen eighty is the

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Speaker 2: number to call. But on the line right now is

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Speaker 2: Gary Morrison. He's the CEO of the New Zealand Security Association. Gary.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon to you.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Madam Tyler, Thanks for talking to us today.

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Speaker 1: Gary.

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Speaker 3: Hey, how much worse is the violence and dangerous behavior

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Speaker 3: getting and why do you think it's getting worse?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's really happened since I think since COVID days,

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Speaker 4: and what we've seen is that there's a less tolerance

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Speaker 4: society these days. There's far more aggression out there, both

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Speaker 4: verbal and physical. We don't have any stats on what

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Speaker 4: sort of increased there has been other than just the

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Speaker 4: information coming through. So I note in Sydney some hospitals

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Speaker 4: just on reporting there and they're talking about a sixty

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Speaker 4: percent increase in violent assaults etc. Wow over the last

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Speaker 4: five years. So it is quite substantial and I'd suggest

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Speaker 4: ours would be very very similar.

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Speaker 3: And is that related to mess and fetamine news?

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Speaker 4: Certainly that's part of it and I heard you you're

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Speaker 4: both talking earlier on and it drugs, it's alcohol. It's

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Speaker 4: a very stressful situation and accident to the emergency, you

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Speaker 4: often have associates coming in who are under the influence

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Speaker 4: as well, and also mental health issues as well. It's

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Speaker 4: a compounding issue. It's not just one single factor. It

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Speaker 4: is certainly compounding.

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Speaker 3: What increased powers do you you want? Would you like

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Speaker 3: for hospital security?

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Speaker 4: I know you are a very fan of very much

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Speaker 4: a fan of tasers. That's not the suggestion or not

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Speaker 4: where were go go for hold. We don't want anything

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Speaker 4: in the wave of weapons that would actually aggravate the situation.

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Speaker 4: What we are looking for is the power where we

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Speaker 4: can actually detain offenders, but I stress when it's safe

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Speaker 4: to do so, and that could potentially involve use of

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Speaker 4: handcuffs if it became necessary. But the ability to detain

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Speaker 4: offenders where it's appropriate, where it's safe to do so,

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Speaker 4: and importantly, where the security staff has the necessary skills,

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Speaker 4: training and ability to keep people safe from that situation.

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Speaker 3: So we talking about a hospital prison here, a brig

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Speaker 3: type situation.

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Speaker 4: Ideally, there should be an area where you can safely

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Speaker 4: take that the offender too or offenders and keep them

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Speaker 4: out of the vicinity. The ideal is to actually get

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Speaker 4: them completely outside, and first approach should always be to escalate,

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Speaker 4: try and talk to them, get reason come across, calm

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Speaker 4: them down, and ideally leave the site is the perfect outcome.

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Speaker 4: But if there is a need to actually step in

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Speaker 4: and detain somebody, right in the middle of an A

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Speaker 4: and E is probably not the right place to be

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Speaker 4: trying to do that and detain the defender. So ideally

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Speaker 4: there should be a safe room we can take them

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Speaker 4: to hold pending police arrival, and that's assuming police can

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Speaker 4: attend in a prompt fashion.

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Speaker 2: What's the turnover like for these security guards at hospital Gary.

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Speaker 2: I mean, just reading the story and listening to what

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Speaker 2: you're saying now, it seems like an incredibly stressful job

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Speaker 2: and what they have to deal with without the right

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Speaker 2: equipment toward the right powers to detain. Do you see

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Speaker 2: quite a lot of turnover in those roles.

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Speaker 4: I'm not an employer, so I don't generally sort of

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Speaker 4: face that situation, but I'd suggest it's not any higher

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Speaker 4: than across the general security industry. A lot of security staff,

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Speaker 4: particularly with their customer facing face those same risks on

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Speaker 4: a day to day basis as well.

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Speaker 3: What kind of extra training would you need for security staff, Gary,

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Speaker 3: if they're going to be cuffing people and imprisoning them

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Speaker 3: in the hospital.

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Speaker 4: It's the ability to carm and restrain people. It is

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Speaker 4: quite in depth training. It is not going on a

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Speaker 4: one or two day course. It's not basic judo knowledge

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Speaker 4: or similar. There is quite a lot of skill involved.

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Speaker 4: You have to be able to do it safely and

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Speaker 4: ensure that you keep treating yourself safely first, but then

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Speaker 4: the safety of defender as well. So it's quite a

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Speaker 4: comprehensive package. We have got a program developed and ready

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Speaker 4: to roll, but we need to have those powers first

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Speaker 4: to a line with that.

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Speaker 2: It's just confirming Gary. At the moment, those security guards

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Speaker 2: do not have any power to detain. They don't have

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Speaker 2: the handcuffs. We know that, but there is no ability

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Speaker 2: for them if it's a collective there's a couple of

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Speaker 2: security guards there to take someone down who's threatening people

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Speaker 2: with a knife. There is not that ability for them

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Speaker 2: to do that under the legislation.

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Speaker 4: In general terms, there are exceptions to that, and it

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Speaker 4: comes back to keeping people safe and you can step

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Speaker 4: in an absolute emergency situation. But certainly we would encourage

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Speaker 4: our security starts to keep themselves safe first, keep other people,

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Speaker 4: keep the public safe is their priority.

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Speaker 3: So right now, if there's a disturbance and you know,

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Speaker 3: patience or hospital staff are threaten to security, what do

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Speaker 3: they do? They yell until they get out the door,

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Speaker 3: they push them out the door. What do they do?

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Speaker 3: Lock things up, go on lock down and call the police?

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Speaker 3: What's the procedure?

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Speaker 4: There will be a range of procedures based on how

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Speaker 4: serious it is. Certainly if it is getting extremely violent,

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Speaker 4: certainly police attendance is required. A lockdown is POTENTI an

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Speaker 4: option as well. But as I said earlier, the escalation

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Speaker 4: is the ideal of outcome, and in a lot of circumstances,

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Speaker 4: security staff can use their verbal skills. They can actually

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Speaker 4: talk to the offender or offenders to get them to

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Speaker 4: understand it's not helping the situation, essentially penalizing potentially their

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Speaker 4: major they've come in with, it's impacting other people. And

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Speaker 4: once they can see reason, often you can actually get

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Speaker 4: calmed down or ideally like say leave the sight, which

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Speaker 4: removes the problem from the immediate For something, what.

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Speaker 3: I don't understand is why they are angry. What are

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Speaker 3: people angry about? What are the flash points that cause

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Speaker 3: people to behave like this.

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Speaker 4: Often it's a wait time, and we're all aware that

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Speaker 4: there are increased wait times when you go into A

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Speaker 4: and E these days. I experienced it last year where

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Speaker 4: I was told it's a six hour weight. The immediate

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Speaker 4: thing you do is react to that. Why are getting

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Speaker 4: priority treatment? And where you've got people who may be

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Speaker 4: impacted by alcoholor drugs, that inflames the situation. They get

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Speaker 4: extremely impatient and that just effectively wine's situation up. So

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Speaker 4: if you can talk with reason and you can to

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Speaker 4: understand what the impact is. Again, that comes back to

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Speaker 4: the ideal situation.

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Speaker 3: So in the perfect world, would it be that there

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Speaker 3: would be a police officer in every hospital with the

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Speaker 3: full powers of a police officer, Because this to me

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Speaker 3: seems like slightly blurs the lines between a police officer

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Speaker 3: and a security guard.

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Speaker 4: I think you have to come back in that situation,

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Speaker 4: what is the best out or best use of our

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Speaker 4: police and being in that situation is not the ideal

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Speaker 4: outcome for their resources. We know they're limited. I think

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Speaker 4: having a highly trained, skilled security staff who can confident

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Speaker 4: the situation. To work with the police, work very closely,

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Speaker 4: work with the hospital management so they know exactly what

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Speaker 4: the protocols are would be a far better use of

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Speaker 4: security resources. And the reality of security staff are paid

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Speaker 4: significantly less in police, so again better utilization of the funds.

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Speaker 4: But you've still got well trained, very capable staff who

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Speaker 4: could handle that situation.

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Speaker 3: How does it work overseas? Are there overseas security guards

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Speaker 3: and hospitals with these powers and is it working?

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Speaker 4: I can actually answer that, but certainly there are a

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Speaker 4: number of examples worldwide where security staff perform a lot

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Speaker 4: of functions like that and very successfully and have very

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Speaker 4: good relationships with the authorities as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mentioned in the United States, it wouldn't

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Speaker 3: be pepper spray and tasers. It would be in cuffs.

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Speaker 3: It'll probably be.

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Speaker 4: Exactly and we don't carry guns. We're not advocating for that.

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Speaker 4: We don't see that as been the solution. And you

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Speaker 4: can say the same about tasers. You can say the

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Speaker 4: same about purpers phrase. The experience offshore is that often

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Speaker 4: aggravates the situation rather than calms it down. Certainly, pepers

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Speaker 4: phrase there are significant risk to other people who are nearby. Yes,

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Speaker 4: of course tasers purpers phrase can be taken off the

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Speaker 4: person who's carrying them, used against them, and it just

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Speaker 4: tends to aggravate the situation. Particularly in the New Zealand environment.

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Speaker 4: We we're not used to carrying Chidney guns. We are

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Speaker 4: seeing an increase in weapons. But I think going down

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Speaker 4: that track would be a very very poor move in

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Speaker 4: the wrong way to go.

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Speaker 3: So if someone's got a knife, though, what force do

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Speaker 3: you use against someone that's in an insane emergency room

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Speaker 3: with the knife?

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Speaker 4: We would strongly suggest you don't. You call the police,

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Speaker 4: You get other people to attend, potentially look at the

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Speaker 4: lockdown situation, get people out of the harm's way. You know,

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Speaker 4: I've been in security on my life. I wouldn't try

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Speaker 4: and take on an offender if carrying a knife.

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Speaker 3: So the people you're coughing would not be the knife people.

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Speaker 4: No, it's where it's safe to do so. Using situational awareness,

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Speaker 4: you're aware of what the situation is. Are they likely

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Speaker 4: to be carrying other weapons? Are there other people or

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Speaker 4: associates with them who may get involved? Are there other

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Speaker 4: objects that could be used to the weapon against you

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Speaker 4: within that situation as well? Again, I was just referring

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Speaker 4: to Sydney hospitals before. A lot of those incidents include knives, etc.

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Speaker 4: That's scissors, yeah right, probably present in the excellence of

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Speaker 4: the emergency rooms.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but there must be situations where there's someone that

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Speaker 3: brings out a weapon and they're not threatening that where

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Speaker 3: the security guard has to get in between the person

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Speaker 3: with the weapon and another patient or someone that's working

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Speaker 3: in the hospital. I mean, that must be something that

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Speaker 3: obviously could potentially happen, and in that case, would the

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Speaker 3: security guard be duty bound to put themselves in harms way.

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Speaker 4: They have to make a judgement call on what's safest

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Speaker 4: for them, and their own safety is a priority because

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Speaker 4: if they get injured, they're out of the picture effectively. Yes,

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Speaker 4: they can't be someone support, they can't be there trying

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Speaker 4: to protect other people. So that becomes a judgment called

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Speaker 4: based on how serious that situation is. If they are

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Speaker 4: comfortable that they've got the necessary skills to try and

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Speaker 4: escalate it be escalated or to take down their fender,

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Speaker 4: perhaps that's the right move in that situation, but there'll

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Speaker 4: be a lot of circumstances to consider.

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Speaker 2: Gary. Thank you very much for having a chat with us.

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Speaker 2: That is Gary Morrison, hit of the Security Associations.

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