Security guards in the healthcare sector are taking extra precautions amid COVID-19, and this very topic was covered by Canadian Security Magazine.

The popular industry publication utilized a number of security experts for their big story, including Paul Carson, Vice-President of Commercial Development, Regal Security Inc.

Carson highlights how Regal Security Inc., for its part, put together a Learning Management System (LMS) training module for pandemic awareness and training, which details what COVID-19 is, and what security guards can do to protect themselves.

In the story he emphasized that the best way to manage the risk of exposure to COVID-19 is educating security guards.

“If you don’t educate them, then you’re only exacerbating the problems,” Carson says.

A call for leniency

Unsurprisingly, there has been an uptick in demand for security guards since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.

“In good times, what do you need? Security. In Bad times, what do you need? More security,” says Carson. “And that’s what we’re seeing now. We’re seeing upticks in requests for service.”

To work as a security guard, an individual needs a licence. However, with the manpower demand now so massive, several security guard companies have been requesting a change in the system so that unlicensed security guards can be hired during the pandemic.

To date, the Government of Quebec and Government of Nova Scotia have announced that they would be lenient towards hiring guards without a security guard licence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A call for action

Carson shared that Regal Security has also reached out to the minister and to the premier in writing and asked for a cessation of the requirements for guards for the next 120 to 180 days.

Carson hopes the decision will be overturned in the future, as Regal has ideas of creating a cadet program where unlicensed guards can be paired with the licensed guards.

“If we had two people and one was a cadet and one was a security guard, we would identify that person as a cadet through that nomenclature,” Carson explains. “We’re hopeful that the ministry sees that there’s a requirement for it.”

Read Canadian Security Magazine’s Feature on guarding during COVID-19

To read the full story, visit: Protecting security guards in hospitals during COVID-19: Security guards in the healthcare sector are taking extra precautions amid COVID-19

The story was authored on April 6, 2020, by Alina Fairey, who is a writer and editor at Canadian Security Magazine.