The death of a man in an RCMP cell in southern Alberta has, according to The Star, changed the way hand sanitizer is provided in hospitals.

Mounties took a drunken Kurt Kraus to the Vulcan Hospital in May 2010 and a doctor determined it was safe for him to be taken to a cell in nearby Gleichen to sober up.

A nurse had suspected the chronic alcoholic had ingested some hand sanitizer while at the hospital, but no one knew he had also swallowed 10 anti-depressant pills.

Within minutes of being placed in the cell, the 46-year-old stopped breathing.

A fatality inquiry in Calgary heard the man’s death was caused by the combination of drugs and alcohol — his blood alcohol level was more than four times the legal driving limit.

A judge made no recommendations, but noted that hospitals have since removed all portable bottles of hand sanitizer and replaced them with wall-mounted dispensers in public areas.

Over the past decade when hand sanitizers were all the rage, I heard several stories of hospital floors mysteriously losing their stash of sanitizer.

And there was this one time, when migrant produce workers in Ontario moved on and the supply of sanitizer also moved on.