The mother of Brandon Jansen is “disgusted” by the actions of the Sunshine Coast Health Centre in Powell River, after she wasn’t invited to hear the findings of a new report that clears the treatment centre of any wrongdoing in her son’s overdose death.
Michelle Jansen, learning about Monday’s press conference through the media, attended anyways with her younger son Nicholas and litigation lawyer Tim Dickson by her side.
READ MORE: B.C. mother questions investigation into her son’s deadly fentanyl overdose
In addition to hearing the treatment centre had been cleared, the trio also heard that the report suggests, through RCMP sources, another client or even a family member may have been the one who supplied Brandon with illicit drugs during his stay. His mother says this is impossible.
Brandon was found dead in his room at the treatment centre on March 7, having died of an overdose on fentanyl, the drug he was supposed to be recovering from. His mother says text messages found on Brandon’s phone show he had arranged for a local drug dealer to drop the drugs off at the centre.
Drugs were found in Brandon’s room after his body was discovered, but neither the family nor Sunshine Coast Health Centre could confirm the substance found was the same one that killed him.
At Monday’s press conference, Melanie Jordan, the CEO of the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, summarized the findings of the report, which was written by B.C. Medical Health Officers for Island Health. The bottom line: the treatment centre was not found to be liable for the 20-year-old’s overdose.
“The investigation determined that Sunshine Coast staff did not contravene the Community Care Act or its regulations in any way in relation to Brandon’s death,” Jordan said.
Jordan put much of the blame for the incident on bureaucratic red tape, which prevented the treatment centre from having access to both naloxone, which is administered in the immediate aftermath of an overdose, and the related suboxone, which is used in addiction recovery.
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Jordan said the province-wide restrictions on those drugs, put in place by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, was finally lifted in July, months after Brandon’s death. The centre’s own licence request to have the drugs on site was approved just three days earlier than that decision.
The CEO said suboxone is now provided to all the centre’s opioid-addicted patients.
Jordan also said that the Sunshine Coast Health Centre’s status as a minimum-security facility built around willful self-admission was at odds with the kind of locked-down treatment Brandon may have needed.
“You cannot restrain an entire facility full of people for the one or two people who may be at risk of bringing drugs in,” she said.
After further detailing the changes brought to the treatment centre’s policies and operating procedures in the wake of Brandon’s death, Jordan was asked if she had anything to say to Michelle Jansen.
“No, I don’t think I would subject Mrs. Jansen and everybody to that type of thing,” Jordan said.
Michelle says this is another instance of Sunshine Coast Health Centre mistreating her family in the wake of her son’s death.
“It’s devastating,” she said. “My son died there. The CEO never reached out to me, never offered condolences.
The family will now await the findings of the B.C. Coroners Service’s inquest into Brandon’s death, which is set to begin Jan. 16 and will take approximately two weeks.
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