Lockboxes for drugs and weapons: Nurses fed up with drugs in hospitals

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While the premier reiterated Monday that patients are not allowed to smoke illicit drugs or bring weapons inside B.C. hospitals, a nurse at Victoria General Hospital said patients are given lockboxes to store their drugs, drug paraphernalia and small weapons.

The patients have the passcode to their lockbox and can access it whenever they want, which has led to illicit drug use in their rooms, said the nurse, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals.

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Island Health confirmed the health authority provides lockboxes “for patients to safely store their belongings. Patients are encouraged to place unregulated substances and harm reduction supplies in lockboxes to ensure they are not left in the open, so they do not pose a risk to staff or other patients.”

Lockboxes are also provided at St. Paul’s Hospital, according to a department head at Providence Health.

A nurse who was on a temporary contract at Burnaby Hospital said patients with substance-use issues — many of whom are brought to hospital following a severe overdose — are able to leave their beds for up to six hours at a time. That means beds in the often-overcrowded hospital are left empty while other patients are treated in the hallway or made to wait hours in the waiting room.

“They know that they’re allowed to leave for six hours at a time without losing their bed,” she said. “There’s such a nurse and a doctor shortage, and bed shortage for patients.”

Fraser Health said in a statement: “If a patient chooses to leave the hospital to use substances during their stay, our priority is their safety and well-being.”

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Postmedia News asked Fraser Health how long people are able to leave their hospital beds but did not get a response by deadline.

The nurse she felt frustrated seeing a “little old lady or man” waiting in the emergency room for three or four days for a bed but can’t get one because someone who has “gone using drugs on the street for hours could just roll back in.”

Nurses have been risking punishment by speaking to Postmedia News about the unsafe conditions they face in B.C. hospitals, including exposure to toxic drug smoke, erratic and violent behaviour by patients and open drug trafficking by hospital visitors.

It follows the release last week by B.C. United of a Northern Health memo that last year advised that because of the province’s decriminalization policy, health-care staff are not to confiscate patients’ drugs or weapons.

The B.C. Nurses’ Union says its members are increasingly concerned about illicit drug use and open drug dealing in hospitals that puts nurses at risk.

B.C. United MLA Elenore Sturko says the B.C. NDP’s decriminalization policy, which allows people to possess 2.5 grams or less of hard drugs, has given carte blanche for “predatory drug traffickers” to prey on people using drugs in hospitals.

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Speaking at an unrelated press conference Monday, Eby said “to be totally clear, smoking in the hospital is not allowed. And that includes tobacco as well as any other drugs. Weapons are not allowed in hospitals.”

While health authorities have a policy that smoking is not allowed inside hospitals, Health Minister Adrian Dix announced Monday that the province would set up a task force to make sure the policies are consistent across B.C. Dix said the province has hired 320 security officers to try to crack down on drug use and illegal activity inside hospitals.

B.C. Nurses’ Union president Adriane Gear said the task force is a “first step” but she’s not sure it will help enforce rules that are being broken.

“We have lots of policies that aren’t enforced, including that violence won’t be tolerated in health-care settings,” Gear told Postmedia News Monday. “That policy is a provincial one and it’s not particularly enforced.”

While the union supports harm reduction as a way to prevent overdoses, Gear said the decriminalization policy has “been interpreted as everything goes.”

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“Decriminalization does not mean unfettered consumption,” she said. “It does not mean that people should be trafficking in the hospital setting.”

Sturko, the Opposition critic for mental health and addictions, said “putting a task force in place to reinforce rules that are not being enforced will do nothing.”

“Because of the province’s failure to address this illicit drug use and drug trafficking in hospitals, they are putting nurses, patients, doctors and other health-care workers at risk,” Sturko said.

Sturko provide to Postmedia News an email from a St. Paul’s Hospital nurse who said hospital staff provide “burner kits” — glass pipes and matches — so people can smoke drugs. “And we wonder why they smoke on site,” the nurse wrote.

The nurse also said the fourth floor courtyard — where smoking is allowed — has become ground zero for drug dealing and overdoses.

Dr. Seonaid Nolan, division head of Providence Health’s addiction medicine department, said she’s concerned to see harm reduction turn into a political football because of the debate over decriminalization.

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“The issue of active substance use is not a new one, either at St. Paul’s hospital or any other acute care facility in B.C. or across Canada,” she said during a Zoom interview with reporters. “We’ve known that there has been substance use on hospital grounds for a very long time and St. Paul’s is no exception.”

Nolan said when people arrive at the hospital with illicit substances, their substances are not taken away because of decriminalization. They are given a lockbox to securely store them, she said.

Patient are directed to an area where it’s appropriate to consume drugs, which at St. Paul’s Hospital is the fourth-floor courtyard.

Providence Health is aware of some of the problems on the fourth floor, which is why Nolan said there’s been an “increase in terms of security measures.”

kderosa@postmedia.com

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