Security at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam will be beefed up in a three-year project expected to cost nearly $3 million.
The Provincial Health Services Authority, which manages the Colony Farm facility, announced funding for measures to enhance security measures that will improve safety for patients, staff and the community. The upgrades will include improved fencing, lighting, security cameras and landscaping.
Angela Draude, executive director for Forensic Psychiatric Services, said the changes will begin immediately and will take two to three years to complete.
Among the benefits of the project announced by PHSA are a greater ability to identify and respond to safety and security incidents and providing around-the-clock surveillance using advanced technology.
"The hospital was built in the early 1990s and these technology upgrades are a refresh to get it up to current standards," Draude said.
The security measures are also expected to reduce the risk of contraband entering the facility, which Draude said is "common enough" despite the multiple measures already in place, including fencing, lighting, security cameras and staff's clinical interventions with patients, as well as decrease the risk of escapes.
In February two patients escaped from the hospital in less than a week.
David Fomradas, who carjacked a vehicle driven by a Vancouver actress in 2009 and then crashed into the CBC building downtown, walked away in 2012, prompting the hospital to restrict visits and launch an internal review. Fomradas was found in Lethbridge, Alta. about a month after his second unauthorized absence from the Coast Cottages earlier this year.
Violet Miharija also escaped in February from the 190-bed hospital; she was on remand from the Alouette Correctional Centre while awaiting an assessment of whether she was fit to stand trial for non-violent offences. Miharija was arrested in Surrey about three months later.
Overall, escapes from the hospital have declined since 2010, when there were 20 such instances.
Draud said the new security measures will be at the hospital and not at the Coast Cottages, which is not a secure facility.
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