A Montreal man high on crystal meth walked into the first clinic he could find early Saturday morning, hoping someone could help him calm down. Twenty-nine-year-old Kevin Bouchard had reportedly been awake for two days when he spotted a sign reading "clinique" and decided that everyone inside would immediately understand his extremely specific medical situation.
"I told the receptionist my heart was racing, the walls were vibrating and I needed Ativan or some other medically supervised form of going to bed," Kevin says. "She asked if I had an appointment. I said no, but I felt my situation was becoming increasingly walk-in."
Staff tried to explain that the facility specialized in reproductive health and was not equipped to treat someone experiencing a stimulant-related medical emergency. Kevin nodded seriously, filled out half a form and spent several minutes trying to remember the date. "I thought reproductive health meant they were going to reproduce my health," he says. "At the time, that sounded like exactly what I needed."
According to employees, the misunderstanding continued even after Kevin noticed that every poster in the waiting room discussed pregnancy, contraception or abortion care. "I thought it was a general clinic with a very strong reproductive-health section," he says. "A pharmacy can sell condoms and cough syrup. I assumed clinics worked the same way."
It took Kevin approximately ten minutes to realize that he had entered an abortion clinic rather than the kind of medical clinic that could evaluate him. "He finally looked at us and asked, 'Wait, is everybody here for abortions?'" says one employee. "We explained that patients were here for private health-care appointments. Then he whispered, 'I think this might be the wrong clinic,' providing us with the first accurate medical assessment he had made all morning."
Staff contacted emergency medical services and kept Kevin seated until paramedics arrived to assess him. He was reportedly disappointed that nobody at the clinic could simply hand him Ativan, but thanked the employees for their patience. "They were very professional," he says. "I would absolutely go back, although they were quite clear that I should not."
