Alberta Health Services expands an emergency department safety measure known as the “one bag, one visitor” policy to additional Edmonton hospitals, including the University of Alberta Hospital and the Stollery Children’s Hospital. The expansion follows AHS’s earlier rollout of the same policy at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in central Edmonton about a week earlier.
Across the impacted emergency departments, the policy limits visitors and the items they can bring into the ER area, with the stated goal of improving safety for patients, staff, and visitors. Both outlets describe the change as part of a broader effort to reduce risk in emergency settings.
The earlier implementation at the Royal Alexandra Hospital comes in the context of an April stabbing at that facility, which AHS has cited as part of the rationale for introducing additional controls. With the policy now applied to more hospitals, the same approach is used to manage how visitors enter and what they bring when accessing emergency care.
