Health Care Professionals... Listen Up!  

When that addicted person is in front of you as your patient, you are their ONLY hope for healing...  

Here's one example of what happens when you fail in your care giving...

I've known Amy from almost day one of my visits to Kensington. Here's a picture of her from before drug use. 

On Wednesday, May 6, 2020, I wrote this blog about Amy under the blog name "Allison."

Allison at Episcopal: "Get Out of My Emergency Room!"

It would have been better for Amy if that nurse had encouraged her to stay in the E.R. and not tell her to leave.

Here is Amy now during a recent interview with AML Films: 

Please take the time to listen and learn from her.

Please do pray that Amy finds the healing she longs for so very much.

On the surface of the issue, my dearest friend died of an overdose on February 21st, 2024.

On the surface of the issue, my dearest friend died of an overdose on February 21st, 2024. I start that sentence with “On the surface of the issue… ".

I do so because, yes, on the surface of the issue, it appears that her body succumbed to an excessive amount of illicit street drugs. But we must look deeper. And there are so many directions into which we must look. My next several writings will be separate writings looking at various aspects of what served as a jigsaw puzzle of pieces creating the puzzle that ended the Earthly life of my best friend. 

Several times throughout her seeking detox care, she would go to a medical clearance facility or a detox center itself and start to go through the process of entry into care. For reasons that perhaps don't make sense to us in our non-addicted brain circuitry but made perfect sense to her in her drug-addicted brain circuitry which had been rewired and hijacked by her officially recognized disease process of substance use disorder, she walked away from the process. She gave up on that day.

I'll spare you all the details of her reasoning to get to the point of this particular message. 

There was a consistent pattern of intake personnel whether on the streets of Kensington or an admissions department in a facility who looked at my dear friend after her multiple attempts at seeking care and walking away when they said to her 

“This is your last time. If you walk away now we will not attempt to help you again.”

(For any individual struggling to feel accepted by family, friends, or society as a whole,

the only thing this statement does in the mind of that individual

is to tell them very directly that they do not have a place in this world,

and bit by bit they are being shoved out of every opportunity that they have for healing.)

From their perspective, I completely understand why one would be tempted to say this. My dear friend had presented herself to you this time and then that time and another time after that and maybe a fourth time etc. You're getting tired of it. You're getting tired of seeing her show up and then show up and then show up and then show up only to walk away. 

She kept showing up and that's what you were supposed to celebrate. 

Just like the diabetic patient who keeps showing up in your emergency room or ambulance because their diabetes is out of control and they can't seem to stop eating the sweets, my dearest and best friend came to you seeking care because she wanted care and could not get beyond herself because of the rewired circuitry of her brain caused by the disease known as substance use disorder. 

You are a professional! 

It is your responsibility to look beyond the annoyance of her showing up and then showing up and then showing up and then showing up! It is your responsibility as the medical professional who you are to look at her and say 

“I thank God that you are here again and again and again and again doing everything you possibly can to get beyond the circuitry of your brain and find healing!”

 But no!

You told her to leave and to not come back or to go to some other facility or you ignored her while she sat in your waiting area until she left unnoticed because you were tired of dealing with her. It Is not your job nor is it your privilege to ignore her in any way shape or form. It is your job to sit there for your hourly wage and serve her, the patient in front of you at that moment. She's in front of you! Just do her paperwork again and again and again and again and again and maybe one of those days it would have stuck and she would have found healing. But you in your lack of professionalism did not do the paperwork and she in the terror of her rewired addicted brain did not stay.

She is dead. 

She will never live to have her family of four children. 

She will never live to complete her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and enter society professionally as a BSN RN specializing in her goal of neonatal Intensive Care Unit nursing. 

She will never have the joy of touring the world and seeing the sights.

She will never again make candles or jewelry as her favorite hobbies.

She will never again hug her Dad, Grandmother, me, her cats, or mine.

She will never again enjoy DiGiorno rising crust pizza with pepperoni or Deluxe or sausage/pepperoni Bagel Bites or the sweetness of one of her favorite candies: Skittles. 

She will never again drink half a gallon of apple juice in one day or her preferred Wawa whole milk.

She will never again have the opportunity to surprise her loved ones with a special homemade breakfast, lunch, or dinner on any holiday.

She will never ever again create a homemade card that celebrates the love she feels for her loved ones. 

The next time any patient with substance use disorder is in front of you and may have been in front of you before and before and before and before and before, look at that individual and say 

“Welcome back. Let's make this happen this time.”

And if you want to take the conversation a little bit further, delicately ask them what the issues are that have been causing them to walk away. If it's something that you can correct, please do so. This is someone's daughter, son, father, mother, aunt or uncle, wife or husband or lover. 

If it is not something that you can directly correct such as staggering PTSD that needs painkillers and the only painkillers that they can get are illicit street drugs then make note of that inpatient intake observation and make sure that your patient sitting in front of you is given a warm handoff to the professional who can provide that higher level of care.

That would have helped in my dear friend's case. 

but no. 

but no. 

She’s Dead.

To Contribute to her final expenses, please click here.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and the City Administration,

 Mayor Cherelle Parker and the City Administration,

As you are going about what you perceive to be the proper thing to do in "cleaning out Kensington" please remember to clean out any nursing or medical staff in local hospitals and other similar facilities who are not treating with dignity, honor, respect, and prompt professional care the patients in their care who you are trying to remove from the streets.

As one among many examples, I offer this blog to you...

Allison at Episcopal: "Get Out of My Emergency Room!" A Story of Medicaid Vs. Private Insurance

Any nurse who looks at a recently Narcaned patient who has arrived by ambulance to the emergency room in which they are employed and instructs that recently saved patient to

"Get out of my emergency room!"

is as much a part of the issue as is every other aspect more easily identified by you and your administration. Please look at how the medical community can do a better job at welcoming these patients with substance use disorder, a medical condition officially recognized in the DSM 5.

They are not criminals first. They are patients first. They are trying to deal with a god-awful situation in which they are not seen as patients first. In your role as mayor, you can make a tremendous difference for the good if you see these people as patients and not criminals.

Not long ago, one of my long-term loved ones formerly from the streets of Kensington was seeking detox care from a facility in which they had been previously multiple times.

Not long ago, one of my long-term loved ones formerly from the streets of Kensington was seeking detox care from a facility in which they had been previously multiple times. In those past visits to that facility, this individual had signed out AMA a couple of times and been Narcaned a couple of times due to a suspected overdose on campus. 

But I do want to add and regard to these supposed overdoses, when you look at the details and the circumstances, I highly suspect that these were not actual overdoses. But that topic goes beyond the point of this blog.

This individual was seeking care not long ago from this exact facility. This particular facility does offer a combination of services that are very much needed by this person and not found at other facilities. Again, the details of that go beyond the point of this blog.

Now let's get to the point of this blog.

This facility was trying to not allow this individual to be admitted there because of their AMAs and their supposed overdoses on site.

In the end, this facility did accept their admission and as of this writing things are going well. But here's the point, if this individual was dealing with years and years of diabetes for example, and they were having problems at the facility because of their diabetes, and if those problems were persisting outside of the facility, the facility would not look at them and try to reject their entrance into the facility.

The stigma of addiction otherwise known as ‘substance use disorder’ is discriminated against and treated very differently than a more traditional and yet equally devastating diagnosis of uncontrolled diabetes. 

Of course there are differences. But the issue is that people with substance use disorder are seen as different or inferior or some other sad interpretation of diagnosis. It is high time that we look at substance use disorder on equal terms as diabetes or any other disease of the mind and body.

When we begin to do so, substance use disorder patients will start receiving on equal terms the treatment and the dignity and the honor and the respect and the love that they deserve as human beings.