GP BRINGS METHOD TO ADDICTION

About one in five patients who walk into Dr David Phillips' "scruffy
little" family medicine practice in East Melbourne are heroin addicts.

Many of them, Dr Phillips says, are delightful people who have decided
to take the hard road out of heroin addiction, surprised at how their
lives have changed since they stopped begging and stealing and dealing
to pay hundreds of dollars a day for their hits, and started a ritual
of chemist visits to pick up doses of methadone.

Now and then a "grateful ex-addict" who has followed the road to the
end will present Dr Phillips with a bottle of whisky as thanks.

Then there is the other, less delightful, side of heroin addiction,
which has in large part led to a desperate shortage of registered
methadone providers, identified in the Drug Policy Expert Committee's
final report to the Victorian Government.

The problem was articulated again yesterday at the annual meeting of
the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, where its director,
Margaret Hamilton, said there was an acute crisis in methadone treatment.

Methadone has been available in Australia since 1965 and remains,
according to Dr Hamilton, the most effective and least expensive
treatment available for opiate dependence. Yet fewer than 5per cent of
GPs are registered methadone providers, and there is a shortage of
pharmacies prepared to dispense it. A fortnight ago, she said, only
three GPs in Victoria had a spare place in their methadone programs.
Dr Phillips said some of his patients were "incredibly impatient" and
could be "thoughtless about the feelings of other patients." He is
selective about the methadone patients he takes on.

Victoria's methadone program has grown by about 15per cent every year.
It is estimated that over the next three years, 5600 extra places will
be needed.

Why does Dr Phillips persist? "There's a certain section in the
community that needs help, and methadone is something that can help
them," he says.