Commentary in Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine

We propose a term, 'Discharge with insufficient or inappropriate care', for the situations faced by people who use drugs who seek care in emergency departments but are either treated for withdrawal when they have a different complaint, or are turned away with untreated or undertreated conditions.

This commentary was inspired by the stories of people I interviewed for 'Expanding access to healthcare for people who use drugs and sex workers: hepatitis C elimination implications from a qualitative study of healthcare experiences in British Columbia, Canada'.

People told me of being turned away from Emergency with broken bones, concussion, life-threatening infection. The people who turned them away likely had no way of finding out they had made a mistake. This commentary in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine is intended to tell them that this is a problem, and to offer suggestions about what to do.

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Learning Significance

  1. In writing this commentary with medical professionals, I learned how to translate the insight into a neglected issue that I acquired in the course of research with a different goal into practical terms for practitioners.