POT PROBED AT PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

Police Check Ex-Patient's Complaint; Robert Giffard Hospital Also In
Midst of Pilot Project on Consensual Sex

Rock 'n' roll looks to be the only thing missing at Quebec's oldest
psychiatric hospital.

Just three months after it became the first mental-health facility in
Quebec to begin a policy that facilitates sex among patients, Robert
Giffard Hospital is experiencing another first: a police investigation
into drug use by patients.

"Yes, we're looking into the matter," confirmed Constable Hugues
Lavoie, a spokesperson for Quebec City police.

Lavoie said a female patient who was discharged from the hospital two
weeks ago wrote to the facility's 60-member security service, saying
she saw patients smoking or selling marijuana or hashish.

Lavoie said that, after carrying out its own investigation, the
hospital's security service contacted police on Nov. 24.

He added investigators visited the facility this week - one of the "20
to 30" drug-related stops they make at the 800-bed hospital each year.

"They mostly involve the discovery of small quantities or residues of
marijuana or hashish," Lavoie said. "Charges are rarely laid."

According to hospital officials, however, this is the first time
police have been called in following a complaint from a patient.

"It's a new one for us," said hospital spokesperson Danielle Fortier.
"Complaints about the presence of illegal drugs or their use by
patients usually come from staff."

Fortier said the woman was a patient in one of 30 wards that house
about 800 patients at the massive, century-old hospital in Beauport.

Another 5,000 to 6,000 people use the facility's outpatient services,
making it the largest psychiatric hospital in Quebec east of Montreal.

Fortier said staff notify the security service when they smell
marijuana in wards or on patients.

"Other times, they smell it on people or notice that they're
(stoned)," Fortier added.

When alerted, she said, security guards conduct searches of suspect
patients' rooms and, in some cases, request urine samples.

The guards hand over any drugs found to police, she added.

The patients face criminal charges or, more likely, the loss of
liberties such as access to hospital grounds or smoking areas.

"We can't kick (patients) out because they're here involuntarily as
patients," Fortier said. "But there are consequences."

According to psychiatrist Pierre Rouillard, one of 30 on staff at the
hospital and the institution's resident expert on drug and alcohol
addiction, drug use among psychiatric patients is far more widespread
and common than within the general population.

The fact 15 per cent of psychiatric patients have drug and alcohol
addiction problems - three times higher than in the general population
- - means there is a much greater concentration of people in
mental-health facilities who are actively searching for, and ready to
use, drugs.

Still, Rouillard minimized the problem of illicit drug use at the
facility. "It's no better or worse here than at other psychiatric
facilities in Quebec - or at many schools, for that matter."

However, the woman's complaint comes at a delicate time for the
hospital.

In September, the facility officially began a three-month pilot
project that permits and enables patients to share intimate relations
in their rooms.

The move is intended to help put an end to the gritty reality of
illicit sex in stairwells and washrooms that occurred throughout much
of the hospital's 160-year-old history.

Hospital ombudsman Nicole Gagnon, who pioneered the program, said
staff have handled only three requests in the first three months.

One of those requests was from a woman who wanted a vibrator for her
birthday. The request was granted. However, restrictions were placed
on her use of the device after it was learned she was passing it
around to other patients.

Another request, from a patient who wanted to bring a prostitute into
the building, was refused.