George Wallace said:
Agreed. It is a fine line. I remember the term "Weekend Alcoholics" applied to certain people who would remain sober all week, but would be totally wasted every weekend; and I mean every weekend, and holidays.
They fall into the abuse/borderline addict category, and cause no end of grief in the ER...these are the asshats that try drinking their pub dry and then have the snot beat out of them on YouTube for the world to blame the police on, go drive home and kill a few people or go home an abuse their spouses or renders themselves unconscious and aspirates their vomit; the clown that snorts some coke and shows up with chest pain with/without a full blown heart attack all while bouncing off the walls; the kid that went to a rave and didn't realize they shouldn't mix and match Ecstasy and what ever they're usually taking and now have serotonin syndrome and we're trying to keep their brains from melting; the teenager that gets into her granny's fentanyl patches she has for terminal cancer, extracts and shoots a 3 day dose into herself and we're now fighting to keep them breathing and not brain damaged. I've left out the clowns that don't get a buzz after eating their weed, so take a lot more and then are gibbled up, or the potheads that show up with cyclic vomiting syndrome, the twit that does a meth/LSD combo and is totally paranoid/psychotic and thinks that everyone trying to help them are big purple elephant finger puppets.
I have of course left out the actual addicts - the ones that manage to eat 2 months worth of Percocet in a week and now think we owe them a refill and then get abusive when we politely and then impolitely tell them to phuque off; the mountains of tobacco addicts that clog our beds with COPD exacerbations, heart attacks, strokes and blood vessel disease; the fast/greasy/carb rich food addicts without an exercise addiction, that show up with new diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and liver/gallbladder disease; the other bone idle folks that sit around all day and show up with blood clots in their legs/lungs; the alcoholic with DT's, cirrhotic liver disease or a massive GI bleed; more potheads with cyclic vomiting; the little kids that show up for CFS checkups because their parents were too stoned or drunk (or both) to look after them. I'm also kind of expecting a run of what I call "new COPD" from folks that smoke a pile of weed a day with unfiltered joints/bongs - funny how when I ask if someone smokes, most potheads will say no until I ask about cannabis use...oh yeah, 1/4-full pack day equivalent (for more than a few I might add)...and they can't figure out why they're having breathing issues.
I guess my issue is that the Canada Health Act ensures everyone has the right to walk into the ER (or be rolled in, dragged in by police or tossed in by friends) at any time for any reason and can't be turned away...even if it's because they're self-destructive and don't look after themselves. It's bad enough that people come into the ER with a cold that's 20 minutes old "because I can't be sick right now" (and the undertone of "it's my right" :
) - when you consider that to get triaged, the province gets billed about $700 IIRC...not withstanding medications, instruments, radiography, salaries of docs, nurses, PA's/NP's, techs, etc, you can quickly end up in the 5-6 figures for a visit without admission. Ward rate is about $8-900/day. Until things get changed such that folks that show up like this are billed in one way or another (have a higher premium on their provincial healthcare for instance), they're going to become an increased burden on tax payers. The problem as I see it is folks want their rights to self-determination but don't feel that they should pay for that same right - so the rest of us do. Nothing in our society is free...to quote "Team America", "Freedom isn't free, it costs folks like you and me..."
On the bright side, I know I'll have a job for a few more years...if you want to legalize things, you should probably come see what things are like in ER's with stuff that is in fact already legal, forget the stuff that isn't.
:2c:
MM
