2024-04-13 04:00:00
My colleague Richard Martineau was surprised this week to see drug use harsh conditions tolerated at the Drummondville penitentiary. Although drugs are banned in prison, although officers are asked to combat drug trafficking inside, there is an “amnesty zone” where drug use is accepted.
This is part of a so-called modern and progressive approach according to which we must not confront those who want to consume. Providing syringes, even providing heroin if necessary, offering a safe place, the workers have developed an approach that aims for the safety of the addict.
Although defensible in extreme circumstances where life is at stake, this method leads to excesses that begin to create alarming problems. In this area, British Columbia is going far, and some are offering us this model.
Please be careful The debate that has been raging for a week in this western province is the following: should patients be left with their weapons and drugs during a hospital stay? Nothing less.
What a memo!
A surprising memo was first revealed by the National Post. Sent to health establishments in the north of the province, it explains to staff not to touch the patient’s drug possessions. He also insists that we let him consume freely in his room. There is also no question of intervening if a visitor brings drugs into the hospital. Above all, there is no question of calling the police unless there are violent incidents.
Listen to Mario Dumont’s editorial via OLD :
As for weapons that a patient brings to the hospital, the staff does not touch them. In fact, we specify a certain blade length beyond which we would intervene. For a knife (or a sword) that is too long, the patient would be asked to have someone take them home.
The Minister of Health has sworn that this memo is poorly written and that the problems described do not exist. Instantly, nurses’ unions decried the blindness. The president of the British Columbia Nurses Union describes the presence of drugs and weapons in hospitals as “a widespread problem in the system and of significant magnitude.”
Danger
Staff members testified individually. One says she has to go through clouds of smoke from hard drugs to provide care. Another was advised to no longer breastfeed her child because of the risk of contamination of her milk by drugs breathed in the hospital.
Photo d’archives, AFP
Nurses complain that poisoned patients represent a daily danger to their safety. Nice mix: weapons and drugs in a department for example where patients are struggling with mental health problems.
Faced with the crisis, the panicked government created a shock team to measure the extent of the problem. Such a waste!
We are told that we must avoid stigmatizing consumers.
I would answer that we must above all stop spreading the scourge of hard drugs.
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#Drugs #weapons #hospital #big #slide
