The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union says a health-care aide was choked by a patient accessing mental health services at Winnipeg’s largest hospital this weekend.

Union president Darlene Jackson said the aide and a nurse were assaulted while sitting with the patient in the Health Sciences Centre emergency department Sunday.

“As one nurse described it, the health-care aide was choked out,” she said Friday.

The Free Press has reached out to Shared Health about the incident.

Jackson said a “qualified person” such as a security guard or institutional safety officer should have been assigned to the patient, not a nurse.

There aren’t enough qualified personnel to meet the demand, leaving nurses and other staff members in unsafe situations they aren’t trained to handle, she said.

While n

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