LENGTHENING WAITING times for methadone treatment are acting as a disincentive for heroin addicts to seek treatment, the chief executive of the largest voluntary drug treatment project, Merchants Quay Ireland, has warned.
Tony Geoghegan was commenting on figures from the HSE published last month showing waiting times of up to two years are a particular problem outside Dublin, though waiting times in parts of the capital are up to 27 weeks.
“The waiting times seem to be up and down, improving in some areas but certainly deteriorating in others. The waiting time in some areas is so long that addicts, once they want to get off the drugs, are saying there’s no point putting their names down.
“So what the State is saying to people is that they want to engage with addicts and get them into treatment but then when they do go seeking it the State is saying ’Go back out and use illicitly because we can’t give you a service yet’.”
The longest waiting time in the State is in Waterford, where a person must wait two years to get on a methadone maintenance programme. There are 40 people on the waiting list there.
In Drogheda 21 people are on a waiting list with a waiting time of 13 months. In Cork, at Arbour House clinic, the wait time is nine months and 95 people are waiting.
In Carlow the wait time is seven months and 31 people are waiting. In Athlone the wait time is five months with 97 people waiting. In Meath and Portlaoise there is a wait of four months and there are 10 and 29 people respectively waiting to get on programmes.
In other parts of the State things are better, such as in Cavan/Monaghan where the wait is two months, in Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary where the wait is two weeks and in Sligo where there is no waiting list.
In Dublin the longest waiting time is for the Aisling clinic in the city centre where 33 people can expect a waiting time of up to 27 weeks. In Clondalkin/Lucan 13 people are on a list with a 20-week waiting time and in James’s Street and Old Country Road the wait time is 16 weeks.
Mr Geoghegan said he believed there was a sense among most people that if an addict wanted to get off heroin all they had to do was present for a methadone programme and they would get it.
“These figures show that is patently not the case, particularly outside Dublin. In large towns like Waterford, Drogheda and Portlaoise the services just are not there with adequate capacity.
“It is in the nature of addiction that while an addict may get to a point where they want to get off the drug there is a conflicting compulsion to keep using too. So when they are motivated to get off it, it is vital the service is there to grab them at that point, to seize on the moment of motivation.”
While many clinics in Dublin have wait times of less than a month, Mr Geoghegan says some areas, such as Ballyfermot, are not listed at all. “Waiting times there are about eight to 10 months.”
“There needs to be an emphasis on access to treatment. There is a concern that in a time of economic downturn people will have greater recourse to drugs.”
