Fraser Health officials are tightening up security at Delta Hospital to help prevent patients from wandering away from the Ladner facility.
Proximity alarm bracelets affixed to patients who are at a risk of wandering will be better covered up. And more frequent checks by staff on wards will be done following the short-term disappearance of an elderly Alzheimer's patient on March 19.
William McKinlay, 81, made it all the way to East Vancouver before he was found by police and returned to Delta Hospital.
McKinlay was picked up in the area of East 41 Ave. and Victoria Dr. at 9:45 p.m. Earlier in the day, hospital staff on the ward where McKinlay was admitted discovered he went missing at around 2 p.m.
After a thorough check of the hospital—which took roughly three hours to complete—the matter was reported to Delta Police who issued a media a missing person advisory.
Police were concerned for McKinlay's wellbeing due to the cold weather and his diminished capacity which made it unlikely he knew the area where he lived, or his actual address.
This is not the first time McKinlay has gone missing.
Last month (Feb. 26), he was reported missing from North Delta. He was later found, unharmed, a day later in Burnaby.
"When a patient is admitted to Delta Hospital, like at many other sites, who is at at risk of elopement they're give a wristband which triggers an audible alarm when they near the exit areas of the unit they are in," said Fraser Heath spokesman Roy Thorpe-Dorward.
In the case of McKinlay, the security measure had worked well for the previous few weeks, but his wristband had been removed.
"They are not something that you can just slip off. They can certainly be removed if you're determined,"
Thorpe-Doward said.
To help prevent that from happening in the future the wristbands will be put on patients in a manner where they are covered up.
"Out of sight, out of mind kinda thing," Thorpe-Doward said. "It can be a visual irritation or distraction and covering it up, it won't be focused on."
Other additional security measures include hourly checks by staff on patients, and a specially coloured housecoat issued to patients to identify them as a wandering risk.
"That way staff can keep an eye out," Thorpe-Doward said, adding the three-hour gap between noticing McKinlay was missing to notifying the police constituted the period when a thorough search of the hospital was done.
"The 2 p.m. would have been tied to the last time there was a rounds done, or a check. And in this case they've upped that to hourly checks," Thorpe-Doward said. "But when a patient is reported missing, the hospital goes through code yellow process."
That means before police are contacted the entire hospital site is searched.