Overview
- The hospital’s security team, notified Thursday by CEO Amy Dumont, can no longer carry or use pepper gel, batons or handcuffs, and restraints now require clinical approval with staff told to call Tewksbury police during incidents.
- Nurses and frontline staff say the change leaves them less safe, with one nurse reporting coworkers in tears and another saying the workforce feels abandoned by the decision.
- Massachusetts health officials defend the move as part of a security modernization and system-wide standard, citing clinical guidance and the American Psychiatric Association’s view that weapons conflict with a healing environment.
- After a Friday meeting with local leaders, the Department of Public Health kept the policy in place, said it will track how the change affects calls to local police, and plans further follow-up with officials on Monday.
- Pressure is growing from the Tewksbury police chief and local elected leaders who want a pause, while a state lawmaker is exploring shifting public-safety oversight to the public safety secretariat; their push follows months of added gear and training after an I-Team probe, a September case where OC spray was used on a patient with a pipe, and a surge of forensic patients that has left the DMH unit overcrowded.