Drug treatment dries up for most needy

In the midst of a heated public debate between tough-on-drugs advocates and harm minimisation supporters, a key resource to help the most needy addicts beat their addiction has dried up.

Until now the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in Kings Cross has meted out ‘brokerage funds’ to pay the minimal costs of treatment for addicts who decide to change their lives.

But the one-off brokerage grant has dried up, blocking treatment for some unemployed and homeless people.

‘This impedes those who most need help, while at the same time opponents of the MSIC criticise us for not getting enough people into treatment,’ said David Martin, Case Referral Co-ordinator at the MSIC.

‘The small number of public treatment places are always full, reserved for priority cases such as pregnant women. Other clinics charge dispensing fees. While $5’7 a day might not seem a lot, it is more than an unemployed or homeless person has, and they need to pay it daily, month on month.’

Redfern addiction specialist Dr Andrew Byrne concurs: ‘Many major hospitals have no dispensing drug treatment centre on-site at all, which is reprehensible (eg. Sydney Hospital, Prince of Wales, North Shore, Concord) while those that do (eg. St Vincent’s, RPAH, Canterbury and Liverpool) are mostly full and do not even have waiting-lists.’

‘The very nature of addiction means that patients cannot always be relied upon to be compliant with large quantities of medicine and so daily or second-daily attendance is usual and this costs money. There should be a Medicare of PBS item for dispensing of medication on regular basis,’ he said.

David Martin said the centre had made over 7,500 referrals to treatment services and follow-up work had revealed an 84 per cent take-up rate for clients referred to treatment from the MSIC. He acknowledged that some of these people do not complete their treatment and many return to drug use afterwards, But he points out that this is the nature of any addiction, as many cigarette smokers will know, and he very much supports methadone-type treatments.

‘These treatments allow people to perhaps withdraw from a criminal environment, or hold down a job and build a life, and allows their body to heal.

‘But all-too-often while someone is trying to kick their habit, they find the system kicks them,’ he said.

MSIC Director Dr Marianne Jauncey said the MSIC would be seeking further brokerage funds from the NSW government.

A spokesperson for Health Minister John Della-Bosca said: ‘the operators of the MSIC have not made any submission to the Department of Health for new funding to help direct drug users into treatment. This is a key objective of the centre and any proposal would be carefully examined.’

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