EDITORIAL – If not jail, then what?

Manitoba premier Wab Kinew ordered an end Monday to using jail to force people to undergo tuberculosis treatment.

The announcement came after public health officials ordered the detention of a 36-year-old God’s Lake First Nation woman to treat the highly contagious illness.

Many people were probably not even aware that arresting those who are not properly accessing treatment was a tool in the public health officials’ toolbox.

But that’s exactly what happened in this case.

Geraldine Mason was arrested after missing multiple treatments, remaining infectious longer than necessary and infecting several other people.

Now it’s clear that Mason’s case had other important factors.

While she had missed some doses, in many cases she simply missed taking the dose in front of a health-care worker in God’s Lake First Nation, because the medication caused nausea and she would take it later in the day when the nursing station was sometimes closed.

At the time of her arrest, she was in Winnipeg at a dentist appointment.

She spent a week at the remand centre before being transferred to the Women’s Correctional Institute in Headingley.

Originally ordered to spend 90 days in jail, she was released early after an application from her lawyer argued the arrest was unlawful.

Here she was treated like every other prisoner, forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor, undergoing several strip-searches and was handcuffed and shackled to undergo an X-ray.

Kinew told reporters on Monday morning that he would apologize to Mason, who has no criminal record and would request “an order ensuring nobody is ever jailed for having tuberculosis again”.

There’s just one problem with that announcement.

Mason was never arrested for “having tuberculosis”. She was arrested for failing to treat it.

Tuberculosis spreads through the air, though it’s not thought to be as contagious as a cold or flu.

It is the 13th leading cause of death worldwide, with the World Health Organization reporting that without treatment about two thirds of patients will die.

However, with treatment the American Lung Association says that tuberculosis can “almost always” be cured.

Other factors such as HIV infection can lower survivor rates.

It’s obvious in this case that more accommodation could have and should have been made for Mason to encourage her to take her medication, and to make it possible for that supervision to occur on a flexible schedule.

Leif Jensen, a lawyer who took on Mason’s case through the University of Manitoba Community Law Centre’s prison law clinic told media he didn’t know why she was taken to jail rather than to a hospital.

In jail she wasn’t segregated from other inmates, had roommates and even worked in the jail’s kitchen.

So, it’s clear that mistakes were made in this case.

But that doesn’t mean we should empty the toolbox when dealing with issues like this.

There’s a very real chance something similar could happen in southern Manitoba, where anti-vax attitudes continue to thrive.

We must consider how we can honour individual freedoms while also protecting our fellow Manitobans.

The harm principle is summed up as “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins”.

Someone’s right to choose how to medicate their own disease must end when other people become endangered.

We should definitely use resources such as public health nurses or hospitals in cases like this.

In fact, since her release, Mason is required to meet via FaceTime with a health-care worker every day to witness her taking her medication.

Where was that common sense approach in the first place?

But if someone should ignore all available help and stubbornly put others at risk, we need to keep Manitobans safe.

That should include the ability to arrest them until they are no longer a threat to others.

Kinew is doing no favours by taking one admittedly shocking case and using it redefine the laws of our land.

He should have ordered a review, sought advice from health care providers and order discussions with other TB victims where they could recount their experiences with public health.

In 2023, Manitoba reported 176 new cases of tuberculosis.

While it may not be an issue many of us are familiar with, it does happen with regularity.

Only once the full picture is revealed would government be able to propose amending rules or adding new ones going forward.

A knee-jerk reaction to this simple case may look good in the headlines, but it shows a leader who’s more concerned with image than substance.