Industrial relations dispute delays opening of clinics
The Health Service Executive (HSE) also confirmed a proposed cocaine clinic for Cork will not be going ahead following confusion within the HSE regarding the proposal.
The cocaine-specific clinics were recommended in a report on cocaine by the national advisory committee on drugs last March.
“In recognition of the recommendation that there is a need for cocaine-specific services in the Dublin area, HSE Dublin North is at an advanced stage of sourcing three locations which will provide dedicated stimulant intervention services for clients,” a HSE spokesman said yesterday.
“It was anticipated that these locations would have been confirmed in the recent weeks but this had to be delayed as services had to deal with the industrial relations impact of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union dispute on the dispensing of methadone. This issue is now receiving top priority.”
He added: “These services, as is best practice, will not be located at treatment centres traditionally associated with opiate misusers but will be developed sensitively and unobtrusively in carefully selected locations in order to attract the client population involved.
“These services will be provided by personnel skilled in the use of Cognitive Behaviour Coping Skills and involves the stepped guidance and counselling of clients to reduce their dependency on cocaine.”
The HSE spokesman said services to cocaine users in Cork would operate from Arbour House Addiction Service. He said counsellors there had undertaken Cognitive Behaviour Therapy training and would undertake Cognitive Behaviour Coping Skills training next summer.
A HSE statement of last June read: “The development of two stimulant cocaine clinics in Dublin and Cork are being scoped and costed with a view to commencing the service in 2007.”
Confusion ensued, not least within HSE South, that there was such a plan. This was confirmed last week, when HSE South said there was no plan for a cocaine clinic in Cork.
Last week, Drugs Strategy Minister Pat Carey said he was not sure whether Cork was getting a cocaine clinic as staff there didn’t seem to know of the proposal.
The HSE spokesman said 20 staff from the statutory, voluntary and community sectors had been trained. He said the uptake from cocaine users to a Galway cocaine drop-in centre, set up last summer, had been “less than initially anticipated”, but it was seeing an increase in polydrug users.
