THE elimination of waiting lists for drug abuse treatment is the priority of a £14 million plan announced by the Eastern Health Board.
In what it claims is a "radical" attempt to tackle drug abuse and AIDS in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare, the EHB said yesterday it would recruit almost 200 extra staff this year to expand its services in education, treatment and after care.
Specific measures include a doubling of the number of beds available for detoxification, a trebling of the number of addiction centres, and expansion of the programme for young heroin smokers to allow treatment of an extra 300 this year. The plan will also make available an extra £200,000 for projects by voluntary groups.
The EHB's allocation for AIDS and drug services during 1997 is £9.1 million. However, the Department of Health also asked the board to prepare a £5 million programme to act on the recommendation of the ministerial task force on drugs that waiting lists for treatment be eliminated in 1997.
Up to 60 additional staff are to be provided at eight new addiction centres to be opened during the year. Three of these will be located in the inner city, with facilities also in Clondalkin, Dun Laoghaire, Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Finglas. The centres, which will be developed to capacity over a period of six to nine months, will treat up to 140 persons each on maintenance and detoxification programmes.
The number of specialised detoxification beds provided by the EHB is being increased from 12 to 15. The plan also aims to increase throughput beds by establishing a "downstream" facility with an extra 20 beds, some of them to be provided by the Merchant's Quay Project at its premises in Drumcondra. A 12 bed unit for the stabilisation of opiate abusers is also planned.
The board's mobile clinic will become fully operational This month, with the extension of the service to Ballymun and the Bluebell/Inchicore areas. New "satellite" clinics are to be provided at 20 different locations around the city, and all existing satellite clinics will be expanded. It is expected that an extra 600 clients will be treated at these centres, with clients in most centres having methadone dispensed by retail pharmacists.
The board's plan also includes a new clinic for sexually transmitted diseases, which opens this week in Baggot Street. The Women's Health Project is to be further developed in the north inner city, and the Gay Men's Health Project is also being expanded.
The EHB said the plan would be implemented though full consultation with local drugs task forces. But it noted that despite its working relationships with more than 100 voluntary and community groups, it is still encountering "significant community resistance" to the development of services for drug misusers.
