HSE South to ‘eliminate’ addiction waiting lists

A major investment in addictions services involving additional methadone clinics in Cork City, Tralee, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny was announced this week by Pat Healy, the Regional Director of Operations, HSE South.

The new clinics will ‘eliminate waiting lists and ensure that the National Drug Strategy targets of waiting times of less than one month will be met,’ the Executive said.
A total of 165 people will receive methadone maintenance in these clinics.

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Kilkenny still has no methadone clinic for addicts

“Once again we in Kilkenny seem to be left to our own devices and we are the only major urban centre in the south East without a methadone clinic,” Deputy Phil Hogan pointed out.

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€3m drug rehab drive for Munster

Extra methadone clinics will be set up across Munster as part of a €3 million package announced yesterday to help heroin addicts.

New detox beds and thousands of counselling hours will also be provided in response to the rise of opiate abuse in the region.

The initiative was announced by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Cork following a meeting at City Hall between Drugs Strategy Minister John Curran, the city’s Lord Mayor Dara Murphy, and other key figures in the city’s war on drugs.

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Taking the piss: is HSE drug testing wasting millions?

Dr Cathal Ó Súilliobháin — a GP working in addiction counselling — writes that the current policy of weekly testing is costly and not evidence-based

The cost of a urinalysis test for drugs of abuse is around €11. In Ireland, it is recommended that patients on methadone treatment have a test at least once weekly.

There are around 10,000 patients registered on the Central Methadone Treatment List. The annual bill comes to around €5,500,000.

There are other costs associated with this activity. Extra male and female staff are needed in clinics to supervise urine-sample collection. The cost of these grades of staff are a significant part of the wage budget of the Addiction Service.

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New national drugs strategy 2009 - 2016 Published Ireland

Taoiseach Brian Cowen today conceded that the issue of drug abuse continues to be one of the most significant challenges facing the State.

Speaking at the publication of the Government’s new National Drugs Strategy, which covers the period 2009-2016, Mr Cowen accepted the problem is growing.

A study by the Health Research Board, published last week, reported that heroin and cocaine use is steadily increasing across Ireland.

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HSE plans treatment scheme for heroin users in Co Kerry

Heroin abuse has spread across rural Kerry and is no longer confined to poorer urban areas, according to the head of Kerry’s main addiction treatment centre.

Director of Castleisland’s Talbot Grove Treatment centre, Con Cremin, told a public meeting on heroin abuse that heroin is evident across both rural and urban Kerry and is “unusually, not confined to deprived urban areas.”

The meeting, organised by the Kerry-based Irish Needle Exchange Forum and held in Tralee last week, heard that heroin abuse in Kerry is no longer, as is generally accepted, confined to poorer areas and is now apparent across the entire social spectrum, especially in the late teens to mid thirties age group.

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Overcrowding at Methadone clinics in Dublin

METHADONE programmes for drug addicts are struggling to cope with overcrowding at some clinics as the pharmacy dispute enters its sixth day.

One methadone clinic in Dublin which normally caters for 500 heroin addicts was yesterday forced to deal with about 1,500 patients.

The Amiens Street City Clinic in north Dublin was the only clinic in the capital dispensing methadone after the rest of the city’s clinics withdrew their services as the pharmacists’ dispute continued.

However, last night the Health Service Executive (HSE) stressed that arrangements to manage the methadone maintenance programme “are working satisfactorily, with no problems being reported”.

In a statement, the HSE said that some additional clinics were set up in the Eastern and North-Eastern areas to accommodate people using the service.

It outlined that a separate contract covers participation by pharmacists in the methadone programme and this service is not covered by the state drugs schemes.

“The fee payable to pharmacists to provide the methadone maintenance service was increased in 2008/9 by 5pc and these fees were unaffected by the recent initiatives to lower the prices of medicines,” the HSE said.

Independant.ie

Methadone patients hit hard by dispute

Waiting outside one of the HSE’s emergency methadone clinics in Dublin yesterday evening was Dave – who did not want to give his surname – an electrician who had to leave his work early in order to get his daily prescribed methadone.

“I usually get mine at a chemist in Ballyfermot in the morning but it’s closed because of this dispute. I am used to taking it at about 11 in the morning and it’s been a long day having to go without it. This is the first day and I can see it getting tougher.”

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Tracking system to monitor recovering drug users

The Irish examiner reports Drug addicts receiving treatment are to be monitored by a special patient-tracking system following a failure to keep check on recovering users in methadone programmes.

The unique tracking system, the first of its kind in the country, will help health professionals establish success rates of treatment programmes as well as their value for money.

The new database though will require fresh legislation. It will help monitor long-term methadone maintenance patients who, in some cases, have been on treatment programmes for 10 years or more.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) said it was updating its national drug treatment reporting system on clients, which would include collating all information on counselling and methadone use.

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550 addicts waiting years for methadone

The independant reports:

Aroung 550 heroin addicts outside Dublin are waiting up to two years to get on the methadone maintenance programme.

Although around 10,000 former addicts are receiving the heroin substitute from GPs and pharmacists around the country, there are long waiting lists in several counties outside Dublin such as Waterford (two years); Cork (10 months); Carlow (seven months); and Galway, Mayo and Roscommon (six months).

And the Government has cut around €6m from the drugs budget, leaving it at €74m, which will have a knock-on effect on services around the country.

At the Public Accounts Committee, Fine Gael committee chairman Bernard Allen said it was unacceptable heroin addicts had to wait so long to get help.

“Surely anyone who presents for treatment needs attention straight away? That’s a useless approach,” he said.

There was particular criticism of the situation in Cork and Waterford, where 40 heroin addicts have been waiting over two years for methadone treatment.

Training

But Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs assistant secretary Kathleen Stack said the problem in Waterford was a shortage of GPs who are trained to provide methadone.

The HSE is to open new methadone clinics in Waterford, Limerick and Cork at the end of this year.

It plans to cut waiting times to a maximum of three months by the end of this year.

Most of the HSE’s 69 existing clinics are located in Dublin, which has the longest running heroin problem, and 43 of them have no waiting lists at all.