An attack on a patient inside Metropolitan Hospital on Thursday, Nov. 18, was the latest incident to highlight the need for increased security at city hospitals. Local 237 President Carl Haynes and several union officials held an impromptu press conference at the hospital’s front door on the Upper East Side, affirming that hospital police officers performed their duties properly and were not authorized to stop the perpetrator from entering the facility with valid identification.

“Because he had a valid ID, he was admitted,” said Kate McGrath, spokeswoman for the city Health and Hospitals Corporation, as quoted in the Daily News.

After entering the hospital, Oscar Rios went to the outpatient clinic, grabbed his former sister-inlaw, Luz Rios, a diabetes patient, by the arm, and cut her face and stomach with a folding knife.

Rios fled the hospital after the attack at 9:30 a.m. and was arrested on an East Harlem street, police said. Luz Rios, who was treated for the slashings, had filed an order of protection against the attacker, but it had expired, police said.

“The officers did their job,” said President Haynes. “A hospital is always porous. It’s a place of healing. They don’t search people like they do in city schools, and the suspect wasn’t behaving erratically.”

Haynes praised the Health and Hospitals Corp. for responding to the shortage of hospital police by graduating a new class of officers the following day, Nov. 19, at Lehman College. Haynes and other union officials attended that commencement, which was the first time CUNY graduated a class of HPOs.

“We hope HHC continues to increase hospital police staffing, so officers no longer have to work double shifts,” said Haynes, who in September called on the city, state and HHC to make security a priority following a violent incident at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, where a hospital employee was shot and another was kidnapped at gunpoint in the face of unarmed hospital police officers.