Are hospitals allowed to drug test patients, then discriminate against them?

[Valiumpirate]

I was in hospital recently for a ridiculously severe migraine attack (also sick with the flu), I was given one Endone (5mg oxycodone), which did nothing and was told they couldnt give me anything else until the blood results came back. After another hour of excruciating pain I was then told to go home as they couldn't give me any more pain relief. Left with 20 30mg codeine tabs.
I had amphetamines, thc, codeine +benzos, muscle relaxants, sudafed, phenergan and ibuprofen in my system as far as I can remember.

Anyway I was completely appalled. This is fucking Australia, I wasn't unconcious, let me sign a bloody consent form next time.

 

[CathodeRayTube]

They most likely didn't test for the drugs in your system. Drug tests are expensive.

 

[AminoAcid]

So surely you were conscious and aware of them taking your blood so you would have to have agreed to that? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't take your blood without telling you why? In fact I'm pretty sure in what you said that you did give consent as they informed you that you they couldn't give you anything else until the blood tests came back, so right there they're informing you they're going to test your blood.

"All medical procedures require informed consent." - http://www.ashm.org.au/images/publications/monographs/b positive/b_positive-chapter_12.pdf

 

[psytaco]

For most people endone is a strong drug, and capable of providing relief for a migrane. My sister gets severe migraines occassionaly and went into the hospital and came out with endone? I'm guessing endone is probably standard practice to prescribe.

What did you expect to come out with? 80mg OCs, morphine etc. the reason it probably did nothing for you is because you have an opiate tolerance. for most people endone would work well. They gave you panadeine forte too.

Anyway, doubtful they drug tested you. it would have been a diagnostic test to determine if there wasn't something more serious happening.

Also mate, the sheer amount of drugs in your system may have led to a migrane. sorry if this sounds harsh, but it may well be true.

 

[laugh]

The nurses would have seen you coming a mile away with all that shit in your system. I'd say you may have been lucky to get anything more than a panadol.

Hope your feeling better though!

 

[Captain Brewster]

^^ yeah when I my opiate tollerance was 0 taking one endone and two fortes would put me in a happy place. Especially after a cone.

 

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

They do have to inform you that they are taking your blood, but I don't think they have to tell you they're doing a drug test on it.

I've been in hospital twice for different reasons and both times they took my blood. The first time I know they tested it because I was hit with a drug driving charge (was after a car accident, I had taken no drugs in a 24h period), the 2nd time they refused to give me any kind of decent pain relief for a broken foot. I got given paracetamol only.

 

[tentram]

I had amphetamines, thc, codeine +benzos, muscle relaxants, sudafed, phenergan and ibuprofen in my system as far as I can remember.

Anyway I was completely appalled. This is fucking Australia, I wasn't unconcious, let me sign a bloody consent form next time.

you obviously weren't in a great frame of mind either.

they probably sectioned you unwittingly, checked what you were on, thought you wanted drugs when you likely needed a nice nutritional feed and hydration and sent you packin'.

if the migraine has been persistent see your gp.

 

[Portillo]

Discriminating and neglecting drug addicts is another horrible side effect of the war on drugs. In no other realm of experience do we neglect people who need help. Yet when it comes to drug addicts, we much prefer to let them rot on the street, then help them. I guess because if we help them it sends the "wrong message" that doing drugs is ok.

 

[Divine Moments]

In response to the OP: yes, medical professionals are allowed to drug test patients and treat them differently based on actual or even suspected drug use.

They most likely didn't test for the drugs in your system. Drug tests are expensive.

True

They do have to inform you that they are taking your blood, but I don't think they have to tell you they're doing a drug test on it.

I've been in hospital twice for different reasons and both times they took my blood. The first time I know they tested it because I was hit with a drug driving charge (was after a car accident, I had taken no drugs in a 24h period), the 2nd time they refused to give me any kind of decent pain relief for a broken foot. I got given paracetamol only.

Performing drug and alcohol tests following motor vehicle accidents is routine practice and a legal requirement.

 

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

That is fair enough. But to be discriminated against the next time I had to go to hospital?

Yes they took my blood the 2nd time but I don't know if they tested it (probably not I'd been sober for a few months)

 

[Valiumpirate]

I had a migraine for nearly a week, with the flu and a chest infection for 6 weeks. I was prescribed/legitimately taking all of those meds, except for thc. and I told the doctor everything id taken.

I have 0 opiate tolerance, I only use when I'm in pain, I usually take 10-20mg of oxy depending on how bad my migraine is. All the antimigraine tablets don't help.

I wasn't expecting to walk out with a script for morphine or anything, I just wanted it to not feel like I was being stabbed in the skull, but all the doctors and nurses were walking past me as I was crying from pain.

I consented to a blood test, they said they were checking for malignant pathogens. That's viruses and bacteria right? Not drugs.

As for the number of drugs in my system, that's based on half-life's etc, I didn't just pop two handfuls of pills at once. So by the time I was actually seen by a nurse there would have been no visible signs of drug use. Fair enough if I had of staggered in there with pinprick pupils and track marks all up my arms asking for drugs, but I was doubled over in the waiting room chair, crying trying to block out all the light.

As for the cause of the migraine, I saw my doctor the next day and told him everything, it was from the flu (ugh I'm so glad it's gone).
I could go on and on. But I suppose this was just a rant post, and maybe a warning to others.

Edit: They took my blood, 20 minutes later I asked for more painkillers, that's when I was told none till the blood work. So no, I didn't give them consent to drug test me, even unknowingly, and was not informed of it at any point. I only found out because I was talking to a friend of mine who's a nurse at a hospital and she said sometimes theyll drug test blood as well, she said they mainly target young people (me), people suffering from psychosis or delirium, or people who appear under the influence of opiates (which I was not, I wouldn't have been in the hospital in the first place if I was)

 

[psytaco]

ah ok. sorry dude. i didn't know the full story or that what you were taking was for medical reasons.

To be honest, I don't think you really got discriminated against, because they gave the same thing to my sister when she had a migraine.

On the otherhand i remember going into the hospital for suspected serotonin syndrome. I told the triage nurse what has happened and she just gave me a dirty look 'well you've been stupid haven't you. yeah you probably have serotonin syndrome'. then she said to take a seat. i then watched as she pawed and consoled an older man who had a cut on his hand. All the while I am sitting there and made to feel like a piece of shit.

Luckily they saw me within half an hour and the doctor was really nice. turned out it was just an overly bad rexaction to effexor and not likely serotonin syndrome. real serotonin syndrome came 6 months later.

 

[Verybuffed]

ah ok. sorry dude. i didn't know the full story or that what you were taking was for medical reasons.

To be honest, I don't think you really got discriminated against, because they gave the same thing to my sister when she had a migraine.

On the otherhand i remember going into the hospital for suspected serotonin syndrome. I told the triage nurse what has happened and she just gave me a dirty look 'well you've been stupid haven't you. yeah you probably have serotonin syndrome'. then she said to take a seat. i then watched as she pawed and consoled an older man who had a cut on his hand. All the while I am sitting there and made to feel like a piece of shit.

Luckily they saw me within half an hour and the doctor was really nice. turned out it was just an overly bad rexaction to effexor and not likely serotonin syndrome. real serotonin syndrome came 6 months later.

The triage sister made me sit in the waiting room for observation when I had extreme SS. They called in the orderlies after I was slithering around like a snake and licking the waiting room floor for around 10 minutes. They thought it was funny. I didn't.

 

[psytaco]

^ thats fucked, and worthy of writing a complaint.

i guess it shows you've got good compassionate people in the medical field and ignorant cunts as well. its luck of draw which you deal with. foruntately, when I have been at my most needy in terms of medical treatment i have dealt with people who at least pretend to be understanding or are genuinely compassionate. The triage nurse has been about the only one who was shit. even the doctor who put me on a benzo tapering plan was good, although he definately chewed me out for abusing them. kind of a cruel to be kind situation there and making me realise how stupid I have been.

 

[T. Calderone]

This is probably not relevant since I live in the states but I've been treated like a leper since the first time I was sectioned in 2008. My sister phoned the authorities and told them I was suicidal. The truth is, I was coming off crack and really depressed. The cops burst into the house and even though my dad and I pleaded with them to let me sleep it off, they took me away in handcuffs to hospital. I had been prescribed oxycodone and xanax and when they did bloodwork, conveniently they told me those meds didn't show up, just cocaine. So I was starting to get withdrawals the next morning. They wouldn't give me any pain meds at all and ended up transporting me to a psych hospital.

Once I got to that facility, they did a urine test which came up positive for marijuana, cocaine, benzos and opiates. Fast forward to 2011 and I have no insurance so when I got pneumonia I went back to a different branch of the same hospital. They are all linked on a computer system. They gave me a nebulizer breathing treatment, wrote prescrptions for an inhaler and antibiotics and sent me on my way.

This past year, I've had bronchitis due to COPD 6 times and each time I go to hospital they are nice in the beginning. Once the doctor pulls up my history, he won't give me even a short conversation. Last April, they gave me a huge dosage of prednisone and I was having a bad reaction to it. I had bad muscle spasms in my feet and legs and my face was twitching. Two days later I came back. The doctor said I was probably having an anxiety attack but I was trying to tell him that I was dehydrated. He wouldn't listen to me and told me to go home and drink some water. You would think if he really felt it was anxiety then he would give me something for that. Nope, he wouldn't even let me stay in the triage room and told me I had to go because there were more patients coming in.

This really opened my eyes to the way these doctors don't actually care about people with mental health issues. Even when I was really sick, they just wrote me off as a "signal 20" looking for drugs which I wasn't. I actually retrieved my medical reports with discharge summary. The arbitrary things they say are on my permanent record and there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[thestudent14]

^ Thats pretty shitty man,
I just want you to elaborate on this though.

The doctor said I was probably having an anxiety attack but I was trying to tell him that I was dehydrated. He wouldn't listen to me and told me to go home and drink some water

Doesn't this indicate that he did listen to you?

@verybuffed
Thats fucked up what you went through, no one should have to.

My mums a nurse and a legitimate genius (IQ confirmed genius) she is highly against drug use. But full would not allow something like this to happen and she would get people fired who don't treat emergency's as an emergency, she recognizes for whatever reason people are in the position they are, self inflicted or not, it's a hospitals duty to do EVERYthing they can to stop pain and give people all the medical treatment possible. But on the flip side I have a friend who is about to finish a nursing degree, she also has a highly negative drug stance. She has tried to lecture me and my friends at time about what we are doing to ourself and the risk we take. But honestly I know more about the affects of the drugs on my body then she does and she refuses to listen. But she has personally said to me that she would treat drug abusers differently because they have put themself in the position they are. This is not the correct point of view for anyone in the medical field. Their point of view should be to help those who suffer reguardless of why they are suffering. Let the law the people who enforce worry about the rest, people in the medical fields first and only view should be how to reduce pain in the short and long term.

Until this is realised by everyone in the field we are unlikely to see much of a change.

 

[AyahuascaSeeker13]

I had amphetamines, thc, codeine +benzos, muscle relaxants, sudafed, phenergan and ibuprofen in my system as far as I can remember.

Anyway I was completely appalled. This is fucking Australia, I wasn't unconcious, let me sign a bloody consent form next time.

All those were prescribed? Taking that together will cause a migraine. If you had the flu why were you smoking weed? I'm sorry to hear what happened, but come on, that's a nice mix if you want your liver to turn into a slimy useless organ.

Everyone needs to NOT mix 50 OTC products together. If you do, expect side effects. I know if I have too much coke my head starts hurting a bit. Stop using, eat clean drink water and recover.

The best you'll get for a migraine is endone, if you want anything else and they'll send you on your way with a few fortes.

 

[Busty St Clare]

Agreed. They are less likely to give you more of anything withn the first hour as they were no doubt observing you. Heaven forbid if you had been suffering a stroke or another serious illness and they had to intubate you for a general anesthetic. They prefer you to fast for 8 hours before having a GA for a number of reason. A cocktail of drugs, particularly ones that depress your respiration would make it extremely difficult for any anesthetist.

I would have more sympathy if you were there for 12 hours in pain with no other treatment but they gave you codeine after an hour and sent you home after observations were complete. It's an emergency ward not a health retreat.

 

[Valiumpirate]

All those were prescribed? Taking that together will cause a migraine. If you had the flu why were you smoking weed? I'm sorry to hear what happened, but come on, that's a nice mix if you want your liver to turn into a slimy useless organ.

Everyone needs to NOT mix 50 OTC products together. If you do, expect side effects. I know if I have too much coke my head starts hurting a bit. Stop using, eat clean drink water and recover.

The best you'll get for a migraine is endone, if you want anything else and they'll send you on your way with a few fortes.

I have a true allergy to paracetamol. Ibuprofen, pseudoephedrine, codeine and an antihistamine (in this case promethazine), make up a number of OTC cold and flu pills, but they all contain paracetamol, so I have to take the ingredients separately, not rocket science buddy, just a work around. Amphetamines, clonazepam and diazepam are prescribed for my depression and anxiety, and I had back spasms from the flu (it lasted six weeks, and I couldn't get out of bed for two of them) so theres the muscle relaxants. And I smoked pot because migraines give me nausea.

Oh and all my organs are functioning at 100%, I got them checked recently.

Like I said, I only went there because it was the second most intense pain I've had in my life, and all I wanted was adequate pain relief. I'd tried everything else to help myself, food, lots of water, powerade, supplements, rest, what I had in my medicine cabinet, the hospital was the last resort, I don't think many people get that, even the doctors and nurses I explained it to.