Nurses & Doctors Hate People Who Use Drugs

I graduated from nursing school and became a Registered Nurse in 2009.

In the 2.5 year bachelor of nursing program that I attended, we only spent about one week studying mental illness and only a few days learning about addiction. I had an excellent professor who taught us the importance of overdose prevention sites, harm reduction practices, and opiate agonist treatments. But most importantly she taught us to treat people who use drugs like human beings.

But with only a few days dedicated to learning about addiction, this clearly was not considered an important part of nursing school. It was just one dedicated professor trying to make a difference. But very few of us were buying what she was teaching us. It was clear to me that most of my classmates were not going to change the beliefs that they already held:

A person who chooses to use drugs deserves to suffer the harms that their drug use causes them, and people who use drugs are unworthy of my time or empathy.

During nursing school I had a placement working on a medical-surgical unit at a hospital. I recall a nurse supervisor telling me that one of my patients was a “drug addict” and would try to manipulate me so I should restrict the amount of post operative pain medication I gave him. I remember another instance where a nurse refused to give a patient Tylenol for a headache because he was a “drug addict”. It was the same attitude I had seen in my classmates in nursing school:

People who use drugs are bad and not to be trusted.

After graduation I worked in the psychiatric emergency department at a hospital. There seemed to be a mentality among some of my colleagues that patients with a primary diagnosis of depression or bipolar or schizophrenia have a legitimate illness, whereas a patient whose mental health problems were associated with drug use do not. The mentality among a number of my colleagues seemed to be that:

People who use drugs are less worthy of empathy, and the goal should be to get them out the door as fast as possible.

Eventually I found my home working as a nurse at a community mental health clinic. With a few exceptions, my colleagues treated patients who used drugs with the dignity and professionalism that they deserve. I began to think that health care professionals as a whole treat people with substance use disorders the same way they treat patients with any other health condition. Health care professionals don’t have the same biases and judgmental attitudes towards people who use drugs that the rest of society has… but I had deluded myself.

It wasn’t until I experienced my own problems with drug use that I found out just how widespread the stigma against people who use drugs is among health care professionals- even among health care professionals who specialize in providing treatment to people who use drugs.

A few years ago, when I was still a nurse, substance use problems landed me in hospital. When the nurses at the hospital found out that I used drugs, they documented that I was “drug seeking” and “manipulative” whenever I asked for medication to deal with anxiety.

After being discharged from hospital, I went to see a doctor to refill my medications and get follow up care for substance use disorder. When the doctor found out that I used drugs, he said that he would no longer treat me if he ever found out that I used drugs again.

My employer referred me to a physician who specializes in addiction medicine. The physician told me that I was arrogant to think that I could have any input into my treatment plan, and that my only choice was to do exactly what he told me to do. He documented that I was undeserving of social assistance, and mocked what he perceived to be my lack of intelligence.

As a condition of my employment I was required to attend a rehab centre. The nurses and doctors at the rehab centre told me that I was a lying addict and in denial. They told me that addiction had hijacked my brain, and I could not be trusted to make my own decisions. They told me that my substance use problems were a result of character defects.

I thought that my amazing colleagues at the mental health clinic where I worked prior to being hospitalized, who have empathy for people who use drugs, and treat them with the same care as all other patients, reflected the attitudes and practices of all health care professionals.

Unfortunately, health care professionals as a whole, share the same biases and judgmental attitudes as the rest of society- and society hates people who use drugs.

From my experience in nursing school where many of my classmates believed that people who use drugs are responsible for their own fate and unworthy of their time or empathy; to my experience working in hospitals where patients who used drugs were denied pain medication, seen as bad people, not to be trusted, and to be pushed out the door as fast as possible; to my own experience as a person who uses drugs where I was mocked, denied services, labelled as arrogant, a liar, in denial, drug seeking, manipulative, unworthy of social assistance, and a drain on the health care system; it became clear to me that nurses and doctors also hate people who use drugs.

We are in the midst of the worst public health crisis in decades and thousands of people who use drugs are dying of overdoses. If we can’t get health care professionals to start caring about people who use drugs, how can we expect society to care?

My experience as a drug user accessing health care services has been that of a white male who was formerly employed as a nurse. Indigenous people, women, people living without houses and other oppressed groups are often neglected and mistreated by the health care system. Their experiences in the health care system have been far worse than mine and have lead to many tragic outcomes for people who use drugs.

*Read how nurses and other employees have their rights trampled when suspected of having a substance use problem.

*Read about my Human Rights Case