'FREQUENT FLYERS' BOOSTS ER VISITS

While debate continues over how many people visit Surrey Memorial Hospital's
emergency room for drug-related reasons, the clinical director for the
department says the numbers are "moot."

There's a drug problem bringing people to the emergency ward, says Dr.
Urbain Ip, who believes that a 50 per cent figure may be "a little high,"
but adds the exact number is irrelevant.

"If it's 25 per cent, so what? If it's 50 per cent, so what? It's still a
big problem, it's still huge," Ip says.

A veteran emergency room nurse told The Leader that she believes close to
half the patients brought to ER are there "directly or indirectly" because
of drugs and alcohol.

Some addicts, she said, have files showing up to 300 visits each. Nurses
call them "frequent flyers."

"If we offered air miles they'd be in Hawaii."

On Wednesday, The Leader reported that drugs caused half the visits to the
emergency ward at SMH, a figure that Fraser Health Authority spokesman Don
Bower challenges.

A November 2000 proposal put forward by the Surrey Health Services Chemical
Dependency Resource Team shows that at Surrey's hospital, "patients with a
primary or secondary diagnosis of chemical dependency" were 50 per cent in
ER, 25 per cent in critical care and 30 per cent in each of general
medicine, surgery and oncology.

"What that study says for us is that 50 per cent of the people who go to
emergency or 40 per cent of the people who go to acute care have a
dependency issue," Bower said. "But that doesn't mean that's the reason that
they are there."

Coun. Dianne Watts heard from health authorities last September that half of
the admissions to the emergency room were indeed drug-related.

"Without some relationship to drugs, they (the patients) wouldn't be there,"
said Watts, who chairs the city's drug-crime task force. She was shocked by
the high number of chemically dependent people requiring hospital services.

"I was stunned," said Watts who added she spoke with two hospital
administrators about the patient volume at the SMH emergency ward. "Drugs
were involved in 50 per cent of all admissions."

Watts began working with Michael Wilson of Phoenix Society to build a
treatment centre complete with a detox facility beside the hospital.

A business case for the facility that was presented to council on Monday
indicates that "an estimated 37,000 emergency room visits, or 50 per cent of
all ER visits involved substance misuse."

Watts says it's necessary because the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) has
given no indication that Surrey - the province's second largest city -
will receive a detox facility as part of the health authority's strategic
plan.

Ip said a treatment centre would be a welcome addition to Surrey's
addictions services.

"Detox is non-existent in Surrey, especially medical detox," Ip said, adding
the problem is financial resources. Fund a detox facility, and some other
program will suffer, he said.

The chemical dependency team proposal indicates that the costs of drug
addiction are "enormous." Substance abuse is costing B.C. $2.27 billion
annually =AD "including $272 million in acute care hospital costs and $215
million in other health care costs," the proposal says.

A 1994 California study that examined 1,900 people in drug and alcohol
treatment showed that for every dollar invested in treatment, $7 was saved
in other costs.

The FHA has an addictions budget of $13 million this year, which is used
primarily for early intervention programs, and residential treatment.

"More than $9 million of that goes to contracted agencies who work with
outpatient counselling and school programs and all of that," Bower said. "Is
there enough being done? I guess if there's a chemical dependency issue,
then there's always room for more to be done."