METH ADDICTS HAVE NURSES ON EDGE

Nurses are scared.

The number of people presenting in hospital emergency rooms with
violent drug-induced psychosis is on the upswing says Linda Pipe.

And it's only a matter of time before tragedy results.

Crystal meth, said the Fraser Valley representative of the B.C. Nurses
Union, is unlike any drug emergency room nurses have had to cope with.

And emergency rooms, she said, aren't equipped to deal with these
violent addicts.

"Nurses are very frustrated, and it's very concerning to them because
of the violence associated with these types of patients," she said on
Thursday.

Patients come in "in a paranoid, delusional state" and require
"four-point harnesses," she said.

Once admitted, those patients are sedated for 24-hours, which
typically gives them enough time to come down off the drug. And in
that time, Pipe said, they typically have to stay in the ER, as the
psychiatric ward won't admit a patient that is still high.

Nurses are required to check on the sedated patient every 15 minutes
throughout their stay.

"There's no appropriate place for them to go," she
said.

"If they're lucky they have a family who cares."

While drug addicts have been presenting at local emergency rooms since
emergency rooms began, Pipe said crystal meth is different and her
colleagues have serious concerns about their own safety as a result.

"It's not appropriate to keep them in the ER ... This drug induces
more violence," she said.

Most times, those patients come into the ER with either a paramedic or
an RCMP escort.

What that means is that not only are they taking up precious space in
emergency departments while they're coming down from their high, but
they're also taking up RCMP resources.

Cpl. Gord Brownridge of the Ridge Meadows RCMP said that's long been
the case.

Whenever an officer apprehends someone who is in the throws of
drug-induced psychosis, the officer is obligated to escort them to the
local hospital, and, until they are admitted, must wait with them.

"We have to be able to turn the person over to one of the medical
staff that's going to take care of them," Brownridge said.

"We wouldn't just leave somebody there," he explained.

"It is simply the case that somebody has to be responsible for a
person if they're unable to take care of themselves."

Brownridge said this type of scenario isn't new, but it is
problematic.

"Any time we're called off the road to deal with something it's a
concern, but it's also part of our job.

"We're making it work, and just like everything else, we're trying to
be as efficient as we can."

The chairwoman of the local Crystal Meth Task Force said the local
drug problem doesn't show signs of abating.

According to Mary Robson, a year ago, there might have been one or two
patients presenting at the Ridge Meadows Emergency Room with drug
induced psychosis every week.

"Now, I'm told, we're getting five or six a day."

Earlier this week, Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Randy Hawes told the TIMES
that he had been in contact with Solicitor General John Les about
finding a solution to the rising number of meth-affected patients in
local emergency rooms.

Hawes said there is a need for a "holding place for people that are in
drug psychosis and considered dangerous."