New act mandates gunshot and stab-wound reporting
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For the first time in B.C., health-care facilities will be required to report gunshot and stab wounds to police, Solicitor General Michael de Jong, QC, announced today in introducing the Gunshot and Stab Wound Disclosure Act.
The new legislation is part of Premier Gordon Campbell’s seven-point plan to combat gang and gun violence announced in February 2009.
“Timely reporting of gunshot and stab wounds to police will help them expedite their response so they can take immediate steps to prevent further violence, injury or death,” said de Jong. “Mandating the rules for reporting means there will be consistent reporting of violent situations involving guns or knives across the emergency health-care system.”
The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics reports that in B.C. for the period 1999-2008, 34 per cent of homicides were committed by a firearm and 25 per cent with a knife, cutting or piercing instrument.
Highlights of the act include:
· The requirement that all gunshot wounds be reported to police regardless of origin. Health professionals will not have to make any determination on criminality.
· Reporting of stab wounds will be at the discretion of the health-care facility so that they are not required to report accidental or self-inflicted wounds.
· Health facilities must verbally report the fact that the person is being treated, the patient’s name and the name and location of the health-care facility where they were treated to the police, as soon as possible without interfering with the injured person’s treatment.
· A definition of the types of health facilities that will be required to report, including, for example, hospitals, doctors’ offices and walk-in clinics.
· Protection for health-care practitioners from liability while exercising their duty to report under this authority.
This legislation is the first of its kind in B.C. Three other provinces have chosen to mandate reporting of both gunshot and stab wounds – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. Ontario, Nova Scotia and Quebec have enacted only mandatory gunshot reporting.
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