Kamloops mom says youth safety program went too far after showing kids covered-up body in morgue

After her daughter was shown a covered-up dead body this week, a Kamloops mother is criticizing a program aimed at scaring kids off drinking and driving and other risky behaviours.

Natalie Franzen said her 15-year-old daughter, Brianna, took part in Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth program — a.k.a. P.A.R.T.Y. — which expose students to the dangers of impaired driving by showing them the consequences in real life.

Part of that program took the kids to Royal Inland Hospital's morgue where they were shown a dead body, obscured in opaque plastic.

"They went too far as to pull out an actual deceased fellow," Franzen told Radio West host Sarah Penton.

"[She was] pretty shocked. They weren't told that they would be seeing a dead body in a body bag or anything. They were told it was all fake."

Franzen said the kids had no time to mentally prepare for what they were going to see. She said they were only given a juice box in case they felt faint.

As well, Franzen said kids could see the unobscured name of the person whose body they were viewing.

"These kids can go back on social media, look up his name, find an obituary," she said. "I thought of the family members. I thought of the disrespect to that dead individual ... to be put on display like that."

'This program saves lives'

The Kamloops P.A.R.T.Y. program is run by the Kamloops Brain Injury Association along with the Royal Inland Hospital.

Association executive director Dave Johnson said showing the dead, covered-up body was aimed at teaching kids the true consequences of drinking and driving.

"If you show them the reality — you show them what actually happens when there's a car crash or when there's some other kind of accident — they'll draw their own conclusions," Johnson said.

"This program saves lives. It's not always comfortable, but this is reality."

There are three other parts to the P.A.R.T.Y. program at Royal Inland Hospital.

The students go to the rehab department and talk to therapists about how difficult it is to recover from car crashes.

They hear from police officers and emergency responders who share their stories and photos of responding to alcohol-related car crashes.

The students also go to a simulated emergency room and see a re-enactment of doctors and nurses trying to save the life of a car crash victim.

Patient info concerns

Johnson said the program has been in place internationally for decades and studies have shown that kids who go through it are less likely to be involved in car crashes.

Not every group of kids views the morgue, and every tour is different, he said.

He agreed that the program could do better when it comes to protecting patient confidentiality at Royal Inland and informing kids about what they might see.

A spokesperson for the Interior Health Authority said it supports the P.A.R.T.Y. program and says students are told they may see patients and their personal information and if this occurs, they are not to share it.

"In previous tours, names of individuals in the morgue would have been covered, and we do regret that did not take place yesterday," the spokesperson said in an email.

"This was an unintentional oversight, but we will review tours like this to see if there are any additional steps we can take to ensure this doesn't happen again."

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