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Comment by alden5 | Hacker News Reader

The increased violence at the hospital I worked at for a bit was because by law anyone who police find to be overdosing need to be brought to nearest emergency room. This meant alot of the people there weren't mentally sound and definitely didn't want to be there. There were often a half-dozen cops in the ER trying to get someone being aggressive to calm down. It was quite an experience working there hearing "code gray in the emergency department" about twice a day.

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Im OK with forcing overdosing victims and others in dire need of medical care into hospitals.

Even if it's at the expense of the safety of other patients?

That's why they're bolstering private police forces.

"You can't fool me! It's bandaids all the way down"

Of course, there is nothing so invaluable in modern society than the life of a junkie.

I don't think you can know that until they start causing safety problems, right? If you develop a heuristic like overdose = harms other patients, then you are executing people who did nothing wrong except make one little mistake with some chemicals. You then get second order effects to further discriminate, "this guy is white and he's unconscious in a rich neighborhood" versus "this guy is black and he's unconscious in a poor neighborhood", and eventually it all starts to feel a little evil.

As a human race, we're supposed to be helping each other a little bit. It's how we're wired.

Based on your profile, you do not work in healthcare, so who’s the “we” you’re referring to? The overworked and underpaid health care workers that will actually have to “help each other a little bit”?

Taxpayers have to fund this. I pay a lot of taxes.

They probably should be taken to a facility that’s better equipped for them.

I presume you mean mental health facilities? Many of them are in hospitals, but they aren’t as widely spread as they once were.

Is a hospital not the right place to treat somebody overdosing? Or are you referring to long term care?

Maybe a special OD section where this is common

The main branch of the public library seems to be a popular choice.

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