Health order sending Manitoba woman to jail for tuberculosis treatment 'wildly excessive': lawyer
CBC
A woman from northern Manitoba with no criminal charges spent a month in jail after public health officials ordered her detained to treat her tuberculosis, even though she wasn't infectious at the time.
Geraldine Mason, 36, was arrested under the Public Health Act on Oct. 27 and initially ordered to spend three months at the Winnipeg Remand Centre or Women's Correctional Centre.
Mason, who has no criminal record, was taken to the remand centre, strip searched and forced to spend the night sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
"I was scared," she said of stepping into a jail for the first time in her life. "I didn't know who to call. I didn't know what to do."
Mason, who lives in God's Lake First Nation, spent a week at the remand centre before being transferred to the women's correctional centre. She missed her son's 13th birthday and her grandson's first Halloween.
"I was upset. I was lonely," she said.
WATCH | Ordered to jail for missing tuberculosis medication:
Under provincial legislation, a medical officer of health is allowed to apply to a court to apprehend anyone they believe is a threat to public health.
In this case, a medical officer said Mason wasn't consistently taking the medication needed to cure her tuberculosis, an infectious disease that can be fatal if not treated, according to the apprehension order obtained by CBC News.
Consistently missing the doses can make tuberculosis drug-resistant, the officer wrote.
Mason said a nurse told her they weren't going to treat her like a criminal, but that's what ended up happening when she was housed with several other cellmates in the general population at the Women's Correctional Centre.
She was only allowed out of her cell for four hours a day, and could only make three 15-minute phone calls a day for free.
At one point she was taken to the hospital in handcuffs and shackles for an X-ray.
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