DRUGS STUDY URGES MORE PROTECTION FOR CHILDREN OF ADDICTS

DOCTORS should break patient confidentiality to inform local authorities of
all drug addicts with school-age children, according to one of Scotland's
leading drugs experts.

Professor Neil McKeganey, head of Glasgow University's Centre for Drug
Misuse Research, said family doctors needed to share information in the
interests of children's welfare. He made his comments as he revealed
details of the first comprehensive study into the impact of drug abuse on
the children of addicts.

McKeganey estimates that 20,000 children in Scotland have a parent who is
an addict. He said that the doctor-patient relationship may even be making
the lives of the children more difficult.

Schools often do not know, and are not routinely told, that pupils are
living with a parent who is dependent on drugs. Doctors, drug agency
workers and social workers should ensure that information is shared, said
McKeganey.

In the study, parents spoke of how their drug use had nearly ruined their
children's lives. They described stealing their children's clothes to
support their habit and failing to protect them from the physical abuse of
partners. Others took their children with them to late-night meetings with
drug dealers or on shoplifting expeditions during the day.

"Many more people have to be looking out for these children, given that
their parents for so much of the time are unable to do that," said McKeganey.

"I feel it is something that schools should know about because it can have
a very serious impact. On the basis of the Glasgow research, we need to be
concerned for the welfare of children living in addict households.

"Drug services and primary care doctors who were treating addicts they knew
to be parents should be alerting other agencies that were likely to be in
contact with the children so as to tell them about the circumstances of the
child's parents, he said.

"The risks to children are potentially so great that the principle of
confidentiality is not as important as the principle of the welfare of
these children."

Guidance from the General Medical Council to doctors would make this
difficult. Under the rules at present there would have to be a high risk to
the children before it would be permissible to breach patient/doctor
confidentiality.

A spokesman for the British Medical Association in Scotland said: "Our
understanding of the GMC guidance is that a simple awareness of a drug
problem would not justify breaching confidentiality."

However, Ian White, head teacher of Govan High school in Glasgow, said he
supported the move. "It would be helpful for us to get more information,"
he said.

The three-year study involved 70 people who had overcome addiction to
illegal drugs.

It revealed that recognition of the effects of their drug abuse on their
children was the single most powerful factor in persuading them to give up.