Drug treatment bodies 'the Cinderella of health service'

Head of Cork organisation calls for accessible and properly funded treatment and recovery programmes

Colette Kelleher, chief executive of the Tabor Group: 'We are all on a wing and a prayer.'

Drug treatment organisations must be funded like any other part of the health service, says the head of a drug treatment service in Cork.

Colette Kelleher, chief executive of the Tabor Group, said drug treatment services are “the Cinderella of the healthcare service”.

The Tabor Group has lodged a submission with the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use and has given a copy to Hildegarde Naughton, the minister with responsibility for the national drugs strategy.

The document calls for a compassionate, health-led response to drug use, delivered by collaborating systems and agencies.

It also wants “accessible and properly funded treatment and recovery programmes” and for the user and their families to be at the centre of all strategies and responses to drugs use in Ireland”.

“The Government now has an opportunity to put a health-led, caring approach in place, recognising those struggling with addiction as individuals deserving of support, and not criminalisation,” said Ms Kelleher.

She added that Tabor Group’s view is that pursuing a criminal route for possession of drugs for personal use is “not only a waste of time, but it is counter-productive”.

She also said addiction treatment centres are not on a firm footing:

You would not run a service for a heart condition in the way that you run a service for drug treatment. We are all on a wing and a prayer.”

Ms Kelleher said it would be welcome to see drug treatment services operated similar to Section 38 organisations, where “staff that are providing the service have secure terms and conditions comparable to anybody else in any other part of the health system”.

She said: “We are the Cinderella of the health system. But that is not a criticism of the HSE as they can only do what their paymasters will allow them to.”

Those interviewed by the Tabor Group before its submission was completed included 90 people in treatment, their families, people in early recovery, staff, and volunteers, in a series of focus groups.

Ms Kelleher said the message that came through that drug addiction is everywhere, “in places you would least expect”.

There is huge shame in families about drug addiction, and many people don’t realise how common it is, she said:

If your child had cancer, you would talk about it, whereas this is a source of shame."

Drug-related intimidation is also a big concern for families.

Ms Kelleher cited one instance of a family being intimidated about a €50,000 drug debt, while the user’s mother was undergoing cancer treatment.

She said: “Families have tremendous pressure, they don’t want to talk about it out loud with their families or their friends, because they are ashamed.

"And then you have a criminal record on top of it, so as well as their son or daughter having a health problem, the best we can offer people is to have a criminal record or even go to prison.”

She said one client of Tabor who had family in the US could not travel to them because of his conviction in relation to drug possession.

“This man wants to live a drug-free life and that door is shut on him.”