THE Eastern Health Board is to issue methadone to heroin addicts on clinic waiting lists, without the normal counselling and treatment which accompany distribution of the heroin substitute.
The board plans to distribute the drug through existing clinics and a van. This will stop at various points in the city for an hour at a time.
One of the stops will be the EHB headquarters at Dr Steeven's Hospital. This follows a report to the EHB recommending this "for public relations purposes".
More than 500 addicts on waiting lists for full treatment are expected to benefit from the scheme.
The report, published by the EHB this morning, is an overview of the drug services offered by the board. It was conducted for the EHB by Dr Michael Farrell, a lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and Mr Ernst Buning, a psychologist based in Amsterdam.
The tone of the report is broadly positive, and the EHB is congratulated for many of the steps it has taken to cope with Dublin's drug problem. Initiatives suggested include surveys of the level of drug use in the population, and the willingness of general practitioners to treat addicts.
Also recommended are a review of needle exchange services, and EHB involvement with addicts in prisons.
The EHB said yesterday that it accepted the recommendations of the report. It said the mobile clinic will dispense methadone to addicts who are over 18, have been opiate addicts for at least two years, and who have already failed at least one attempt at detoxification.
The report said this type of "interim" methadone programme can have "substantially more benefit than no methadone", although it added that it was less, beneficial than a full methadone maintenance programme.
The EHB said it was planning to become more involved in prison drug programmes from next month, and it would consider using its community drugs workers in a prison drugs team.
A system was also being put in place so that the level of drug addict deaths could be monitored.
. Members of the Ballymun Drugs Services Negotiation Group handed in a letter at EHB headquarters yesterday seeking more drugs services for the area, and a role for residents in determining how they are developed.
A spokesman said the EHB had not given Ballymun residents any commitment about what part they, could play in developing the services.
