Ireland’s profile of addiction has seen a shift, according to figures from a treatment centre, with 77 per cent of its clients presenting with two or more addictions.
Maebh Mullaney, the chief executive of the Rutland Centre, told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland the situation had changed “hugely” over the past decade, but even more so in the last year.
“Certainly last year what we saw is that continued trend of rising cocaine users, rising multi-substance users and that mix, alcohol is still very much in the mix there. And it’s just creating this pressure on families and on communities and on services.”
As a result of the growing demand on services the Rutland Centre decided to develop a response that was “going to be meaningful to people and that met people in that need when they were ready to make a change”.
READ MORE
The changes that had been implemented were already working and were going to make a real difference, she said. “What we noticed in the Rutland Centre over the last period of time is people that were caught in this trap, in this limbo almost, where they needed to be detoxed medically, unable to access a bed or unable for various reasons to complete a community-led detox under the care of their GP, perhaps not complex enough but also not stable enough for in a position to access an abstinence-based treatment programme.
“So they’re caught in this cycle and we noticed that there was a recurring pattern of families and individuals coming that essentially had nowhere else to go. They’re desperately looking for a pathway into recovery, desperately looking to access the service and we felt that we could and should do better to try and meet that. So what we’ve done is established our inpatient detox unit for them.
“So people now will complete their detox, go straight into our residential rehabilitation programme and straight into our aftercare programme. And we know the evidence tells us that people will do better if they complete those treatment episodes in one service with one service provider and we’re really trying to give people the absolutely best outcome or the best chance of a sustained recovery after they’ve completed those treatments.”
Mullaney said that “one size doesn’t fit all” when it comes to detox and treatment which was why it was incumbent on all addiction services to try and have a variety of services there “to meet people where they’re at”.
Not everyone needed detox, she said, which was why some people could go straight into a residential treatment programme, “but it’s all based on that clinical assessment and it’s really about making sure that we’re putting people in a service that they need and that’s going to best serve their needs at the time that they’re ready for change.”
Addiction services across the country were under a lot of pressure, she added. “I think we have to understand the scale of the challenge there. There’s relentless demand for services, we’ve seen that at the Rutland Centre and I’m sure any of our counterparts in the sector would say the same thing.
“You’re seeing innovations and you’re seeing services trying to make the best of it and trying to provide new solutions for families that are practical and timely and I know the HSE are committed, there’s a lot of different parties and stakeholders that are coming together but I think really it’s that unrelenting demand that is posing the biggest challenge.”
