KHK continues to defend the practice of bathroom monitoring because of suicide concerns, although now Penny Walker claims that no direct supervision is required. Oldcomers, she claims, now stand outside the ajar door of the bathroom, although conflicting reports have surfaced. We know that it's business as usual, and that one's business is not his or her private business as long as KHK has any say in the matter.
The enforced supervision of bathroom time is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the program's protocol. The claim that newcomers are a suicide risk and must be watched at all times is at best out of synch with other facilities that utilize healthy, non-abusive models of treatment.
Having spent time in KHK and then a hospital setting drug treatment facility, I can state with certainty that bathroom monitoring of this degree is not the norm. The hospital facility in which I spent six weeks had communal bathrooms with toilet and shower stalls. This program was very structured, and one was monitored frequently. Yet the qualified people who designed the protocol saw no need to trample upon basic human dignity because of suicide fears.
