ADDICTED, HOMELESS COSTING US BIG BUCKS

One of the local drugstores has a sense of black humour about
health.

You walk in and are enveloped by a huge display of chocolates, most of
them leading down the aisle where at the end you can find help for
diabetes.

On television, a commercial sings out the solution for you to "be
yourself" and to "get back to normal" by taking an over-the-counter
prescription medication known to cause liver damage if taken
incorrectly, with alcohol or in too great a quantity.

The recently released Vision 20/20 report of Health Minister Ron
Leipert mentions that taking personal responsibility for one's health
will be part of the plan.

Are we ready for that? And what does that mean?

The new plan notes that to deal with addictions, an additional 20 beds
have been added to help people kick the various habits.

Yet one of the more common problems in our health system, according to
Dr. Lou Francescutti of the University of Alberta, is injury due to
substance abuse.

According to him, "as many as 69 per cent of trauma (emergency)
patients meet diagnostic criteria for substance abuse or dependence.
When screened, over 40 per cent of trauma patients test positive for
chronic alcohol abuse . . . (with a) high rate of re-injury among
those with substance abuse problems.

"To those of us who work in emergency rooms, the link between
substance abuse and injury is obvious . . . (and) a great reluctance
in our current acute medical system to identify people with chemical
dependency and intervene to help them."

That's what's jamming up our emergency departments. And according to
some front-line nurses I've spoken with, a good percentage of those
people in emergency are the homeless.

The homeless arrive at emergency because it is warm and safe. They can
get a meal and perhaps a fix while someone looks at their broken arm,
stab wound, festering sore or aching belly (perhaps due to something
they ate from a dumpster).

One nurse recounted how disappointed her hospital's plastic surgery
team is when a homeless person arrives with a gangrenous wound, is
treated, restorative surgery is done, and the person is released to
the street where within hours the wound is infected and damaged. The
next stage is not repair - it's amputation.

That costs us a bundle.

Then there are highway collisions due to substance abuse. Facial
restorative surgery, physiotherapy, brain injury rehab . . . can we
afford drunks and dopeheads on the road?

Then of course there are the other substance-abuse-related issues -
seniors falling due to medication; domestic violence due to a deadly
combo of drugs or booze and rage; bar fights; and the simple drug
overdoses through unwitting cross-medication with over-the-counter
drugs.

Getting back to "normal" might mean you are a candidate for a liver
transplant. Isn't that amazing?

And yet all these drugs are still sold "over the counter" and without
the benefit of specific directions for use from a pharmacist or doctor.

We live in a time where we will pay any money to heal someone
suffering from cancer. But if someone is suffering from addiction or
substance abuse - well, we'll just let them stagger through life and
emergency rooms without ever intervening at that stage. No doctor and
no AADAC counsellor is on standby at the hospital to intervene and
help make sobriety part of that person's wellness plan.

Apparently that would be an invasion of privacy.

So people continue to be able to freely access emergency services
while freely engaging in all kinds of substance abuse. You and I get
to pay for it.

Michelle Stirling-Anosh is a Ponoka columnist.