Nurse describes the horrors of addiction, safe injection sites
Nov 1, 2017, 7:52 PM
Can safe injection sites really help Seattle's opioid crisis? (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
(Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
A veteran who served in Iraq and is now a conscious sedation nurse joined the Todd Herman Show to talk about the problems with what medical professionals would be asked to do at proposed safe injection sites.
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Michael Hesch details what he currently does for work, which involves administering Fentanyl — a highly potent opioid. There are three professionals in the room giving constant monitoring. But at the government sites, there will be only one person monitoring the individual, he said.
He also said when you first deal with addicts, it is shocking to see the level of infections that are on their body. Some of the infections are so deep that they go into the bone and require amputation. Hesch said the heroin itself is actually destroying their veins. These infections can last for months. And they need to be in the hospital receiving treatment. But they would not be receiving hospital supervision at the injection sites.
Todd asked him if this violates the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take, and if it violates the training that nurses receive. He said yes, it does. He agrees that the majority of people in the country don’t want these sites.
Hesch says heroin addicts are not people in their right mind and that it is an illness. We should not be funding these government sanctioned heroin sites.
As always, please listen to the full audio clip for complete context.
