Do Doctors still want to save lives?

[Sumina]

My experience so far with meth and doctors has been very frustrating. My incident goes as follows. I suspected my 14 year old child was using meth and it took great planning to get her in for testing within the 5 day required period. Previous attempts failed as my child new what I was doing and threw a wrench in my plans by not getting out of bed. This time I claimed she looked anaemic or possibly she had mono and we should go to the doctor as she was in complete denial about using drugs. I contacted the doctor ahead with a letter to explain the situation so she would handle the situation carefully. When we arrived, the doctor came in and acted like a scolding mother and, of course, my daughter shut down. I thought the doctor and I were on the same track when she handed me the lab sheet for testing and off we went to MDS labs. Once my daughter was seated in with the MDS nurse I asked the front desk to be sure it included testing for meth and she informed me it was not for any drugs. It was too late at that time to contact the doctor and there went my opportunity for proof of use and intervention. It seems criminal to be sold the goods of a caring doctor and then be asked to take a number and wait your turn. You may see the doctor in a couple weeks to a month. We can't wait when it comes to this drug!

I am pleading as a parent in our community that we need pro-active, meth savvy doctors. I have only been able to come up with one addiction specialist in Victoria and I applaud her for taking on this challenging role and I can only urge other doctors to exceed past the GP level and accept the greater challenge and help in the fight against crystal meth. This would give you a lot of brownie points the next time you want our support when you want to strike.

If you are a doctor or you have the access to encouraging a doctor to take on this challenge I urge you to respond to the site and make yourselves available to the Crystal Meth BC resource site. We need your help and it offers huge lifesaving rewards and isn't that one reason you all became doctors - to Save Lives?