Police are investigating how a psych patient managed to smuggle a knife through security at Odense University Hospital before stabbing three hospital employees early Friday morning.

After the man had injured three members of the hospital staff, he barricaded himself in a room for ten hours before police were able to enter and finally arrest him.

During the preliminary questioning, the man said he committed the acts because he was angry at being committed to the psychiatric ward.

A male doctor was seriously injured and two other female members of staff were also wounded but reports from Jyllands-Posten newspaper say that all three are in stable condition and improving.

“All three patients are stable,” Jens Peter Steensen hospital director, said. “What the patients and their families need now is rest and quiet, but they are doing well and getting better.”

The police are currently investigating how the 47-year-old patient managed to get a knife through security. The man, who been charged with three counts attempted murder, told the court that he had brought the knife in his bag.

According to the regional psychiatric municipality, Psykiatrien i Region Syddanmark, all patients and their belongings are searched on arrival, a protocol that was also followed in this case.

The working environment authority, AT, will be looking into the security breach today to ascertain why the security failed to find the knife.

“In a case as serious as this one, we make our own investigations,” AT supervisor Palle Graversgaard told TV 2 news. “We have to look into the case in general and make sure that the employer has lived up to proper procedure.”

The mentally unstable man will be remanded until April 13. He has denied that the attack was a premeditated murder attempt.