Mental patient hit by bus after being told to smoke outside

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Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:00a.m.

A Hamilton mental patient has been hit by a bus after being told by Waikato Hospital that she would have to go outside if she wanted to smoke.

Since the new smoke-free policy took effect 16 days ago, mentally-ill patients at Waikato Hospital have had been lighting up by the road.

Yesterday, a curb side smoking session cost a 50-year-old patient a trip to the emergency department after being hit by the bus.

"She did receive injuries and she was dealt with through our A&E department," says Jeff Bennett from the Waikato Hospital Mental Health Unit. We've been communicating with the family, the nature of the injury is not serious in itself, but of course it is a concern that a patient has managed to put themselves in harms way under our care."

The Henry Rongomau Bennett centre is one of the first mental health facilities in New Zealand to enforce a smoking ban.

All mental health facilities will have to be smoke-free by 2011.

The policy has drawn opposition from the mental health community, who are concerned that patients in compulsory care who can't leave the building, are being forced to go cold turkey.

"We're already talking about a very vulnerable group of people here," says Florence Leota from Schizophrenia Fellowship New Zealand. "They're already highly stressed, with high levels of anxiety. We just want to make sure that when you roll out that treatment that their treatment is not compromised."

The Waikato patients are given gum, nicotine patches and inhalers to help deal with the craving.

But Ms Leota says its also about the patient having something in their hand.

"For many people that smoke, and I'm not just talking about psychiatric patients, having to give up an addiction is incredibly hard," she says. "So for this group of people it would be significantly hard."

Waikato hospital has now agreed to a safe designated smoking area inside the grounds where all patients can smoke, while it investigates yesterday's bus accident.

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Comments [2]

Steve

16 Apr 2009 8:33p.m.

cont. If cannabidiol is effective as a treatment, and has few or no side effects, and is what mental health patients are naturally drawn towards, why not give it to them?
If people with illnesses are made to take things that harm them, it is no wonder they may not wish to comply with a pill regime that can cause serious physical or social problems for them. Imagine mental patients who liked taking their medicine? Now there's a novel thought...
Cannabis has been accused time and time again of perhaps being a cause of schizophrenia, but in the last thirty odd years cannabis use statistics have been on a significant upward trend yet the rate of schizophrenia is the same, 1% of the population become diagnosed with the illness. If indeed cannabis were a cause of the condition, then you could assume to see an increase in the frequency of the illness in the general population.
People with illnesses and problems, be they physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, require assistance. Arresting the mentally ill on drugs charges is not likely to be in anyones interest, especially considering the aforementioned information.
Cannabidiol may not be the right fit for everyone, but criminalising the people who seek this form of treatment in the only way it is available, that is, from the local criminal growers and dealers is likely to set them on paths that may not have altogether happy endings.
In Holland, people can buy cannabis products over the counter (R18) and if there were any serious negative health or social consequences from the system of control in that country, then the Dutch have had over thirty years to identify them and re-criminalise the average pot smoker.
Incidently, jazz musicians and computer programmers smoke dope at higher levels than other groups, but no one says that smoking pot will cause one to become a jazz musician or tech head. Why the special distinction for schizophrenia and cannabis?

Steve

16 Apr 2009 8:14p.m.

This is an interesting story on a number of fronts. Mental health watchdogs are rightly concerned about this discrimination based on personal choice of drug, in this case, nicotine sourced from burning tobacco leaves.
It is interesting that the Schizophrenia Fellowship have backed up the many in hospital who have schizophrenia and also an addiction to nicotine and perhaps just "having something in their hand."
Many people with schizophrenia like illness also like to smoke products made from the cannabis plant, and people in this group have a raised rate of use of cannabis products when compared to the general population, the same as they do for the use of tobacco products.
I wonder if people concerned about cannabis use by the mentally ill were aware that recent research, a clinically controlled study of a small group of schizophrenics who were experiencing the symptoms of psychosis, were trialed on either amusulpride, (a modern anti-psychotic medication) or a cannabis extract, cannabidiol (CBD), to see how the drugs affected the patients recovery from their psychotic state.
Cannabidiol worked just as well as the man made fix, but amusulpride was associated with some adverse side effects.
Cannabidiol is a naturally occuring drug that has little or no high attached to it, unlike the other main active component of cannabis, THC, which may have a distabalising effect for some mentally unwell people. Cannabidiol has an anxiety allaying property, and if the research is sound, it may well have some anti psychotic action equal to modern drugs.
This may explain why often unwell people reach for cannabis products in an attempt to self medicate their mental inbalance, or the symptoms of their illness. Unfortunately this practise is viewed as somehow criminal, and patients are forced to abstain and take medications that may make them fall over if they stand up to quick, a number develop diabetes, get fat, slurr their speech or receive damage their blood and organs.