550 addicts waiting years for methadone
AROUND 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.
- MICHAEL BRENNAN
