Hospital board mulls changes to Campbell County Health gun policy

GILLETTE — A bill that would have repealed gun-free zones in most of Wyoming passed the Legislature with strong support but failed to become law following a veto last month from Gov. Mark Gordon.

Now hospital board trustees are considering whether to make policy changes of their own when it comes to gun restrictions at Campbell County Health.

In anticipation of a future rollback of gun-free zones, hospital board chair Alan Stuber asked trustees and CCH higher-ups last week at a hospital board retreat in Deadwood, South Dakota, to consider lifting gun restrictions for certain parts of the organization, while keeping restrictions in other areas.

Current policy calls for signage at CCH facilities declaring them as “weapon-free” areas, which encompasses guns and other potential weapons.

“If we lead the way on this we can kind of guide legislation into doing it the right way,” Stuber said.

Stuber’s comments followed a talk with Wyoming Hospital Association president Eric Boley, who told the hospital board that he was surprised by the governor’s veto and anticipates that lawmakers will try passing a similar bill in the 2025 legislative session.

Stuber, who is a Gillette police detective, said that the idea would be to implement a safe policy that keeps restrictions in certain departments, such as behavioral health, while getting ahead of future changes to Wyoming gun law which may come as soon as next year.

“The one thing that I do agree with is if you’re going to do it, do it right,” he said.

He also acknowledged that he and other trustees aren’t the ones who would have to deal with any repercussions of such a policy change.

“It’s very easy for me to say, “Yeah, let’s get guns in the hospital,” but I’m not the one working there all the time,” Stuber said.

Matt Shahan, CCH CEO, said that it would require input from all levels of the organization before beginning to move forward with a policy change on gun restrictions.

“We would want to bring that information back to you guys so that you approve such a policy with the full view of the organization,” he said.

Dr. Robert Neuwirth said it’s important to consider context and information about how often attacks happen at health care facilities, what kind of risks are involved and what actions other organizations have taken.

“I think if you go out and just ask, ‘What should we do about this,’ you’ll get a lot of uninformed discussion,” he said.

In a letter explaining his veto, Gordon wrote that House Bill 125- Repeal gun free zones and preemption amendments would have stepped on local control while giving the Legislature authority to “micromanage a constitutionally protected right.”

He also wrote that the bill exceeds separation of powers established in the Wyoming Constitution.

His veto was met with pushback from lawmakers, including the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, and was among several vetoes that led to a vote on whether to convene a special session. The vote narrowly gained a majority in the Senate and failed in the House, nixing the special session attempt and leaving lawmakers without a way to override Gordon’s vetoes.

Trustees were open to considering changing CCH gun policy, with some sharing anecdotes of times in their careers when they felt threatened in a health care setting.

Trustee Dr. Mark Hoskinson said that there was an incident not long ago involving someone with a knife at a Hoskinson Health and Wellness Clinic psychiatry office in the Lakeway Plaza which caused his clinic to reconsider its security measures.

“I feel safer with people who know how to use guns,” Hoskinson said. “… I’d rather have people who are well trained and I would not want to work in a zone where I know that I have no protection until the police got there.”

Trustee Bill Rice, a former longtime CCH employee, recalled an encounter with a patient who entered the Walk-in Clinic with a knife in a threatening manner, but ultimately used it to hurt himself rather than attack employees or other patients.

“Of course, I’m not sure if I had a gun that would have been good either,” he said. “… I think we would have felt better if we were prepared to protect ourselves or prevent people from advancing on the front desk.”

This story was published on April 9, 2024.