Illicit-drug use by patients at VGH is common, nurse says

A Victoria General Hospital nurse says illicit drug use by patients occurs daily in the hospital, and the health authority does little to enforce no-smoking rules, which is putting nurses and other staff at risk.

“I can definitely tell you it happens daily,” Laura Martin said outside the hospital’s main admitting area. “We have a no-smoking policy but nothing’s enforced.”

Martin, a B.C. Nurses’ Union steward for the approximately 1,200 nurses at the hospital, wiped away tears as she talked about trying to protect nurses from inhaling toxic drugs, touching illicit powders with ungloved hands, and being injured by intoxicated patients.

The B.C. Nurses’ Union supports harm-reduction measures, but president Adriane Gear said the “prevalence” of illicit-drug use in hospitals has spiked since possession of small amounts was decriminalized, which is exposing nurses not only to toxic fumes but also the criminal element bringing drugs to these patients.

“No one’s monitoring that and that’s ridiculous,” Gear said in an interview.

Gear is proposing a type of safer-consumption site at hospitals to at least contain and supervise the use if it’s to be permitted. She said addiction is a health issue, so there needs to be a balanced approach, but it can’t threaten the safety of healthcare workers.

“[Health authorities] have these policies that look good on paper, but they don’t enforce them and at 3 o’clock in the morning on a Saturday night when you’re working a 50 per cent staff, that’s when this stuff blows up,” Gear said.

“It’s the prevalence, it’s the frequency in which it’s happening,” she said.

“Before there would be behaviours that just wouldn’t be tolerated, whereas now because of decriminalization, it is being tolerated.”

Martin cited the case of a pregnant nurse who was exposed to toxic drug fumes last summer — “How terrifying is that?”

A Worksafe B.C. compliance agreement in June based on an inspection of 1952 Bay St. —Royal Jubilee Hospital — cites “exposure to illicit substances in the workplace.”

In a controversial leaked memo revealed last week, Northern Health instructs hospital staff to allow patients to use drugs in their hospital rooms.

The memo, sent to G.R. Baker staff in Quesnel in July 2023, says staff are not to search or seize patients’ drugs or weapons with blades less than four inches long, or restrict visitors who bring them drugs for personal use.

The memo explains the protocol stems from the province’s decriminalization policy, which applies to anyone in possession of 2.5 grams or less of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine or MDMA.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said in question period that possession and use of controlled substances are prohibited for all clients in emergency departments, any unit where there are clients under the age of 18, in-patient psychiatric units and in-patient withdrawal units. Weapons are prohibited, as is smoking, he said.