CLAIM CUTS PUT HEROIN USERS IN GREATER DANGER

Heroin users are in greater danger of dying from overdoses following
the
cutback of outreach services in the central city, a senior drug worker
believes.

Jo Beckett, 43, formerly head of Wesley Central Mission's primary
health-care facility, says many of her 400 former "clients" were now at
much greater risk. This was due to Wesley's decision to scale back its
outreach effort after its failure to open a supervised injecting room.

"Seventy per cent of Wesley's clients are over 30, and there is no
other
service in the CBD for them," Ms Beckett said. "By cutting back its
service, Wesley is pushing these people back into laneways and
alleyways."

Melbourne's death toll from heroin use has reached almost 220 this year,
and is on track to match or pass last year's total of about 370.

Ms Beckett, whose work with addicts was praised by many - including CBD
residents' spokesman and Wesley critic, Peter Faris, QC - did not have
her contract renewed when it ended last month. She was offered a job at
lower pay but rejected it because she says she could not make the one-
and-a-half-hour journey to the city without a Wesley car and could not
keep in contact with her clients without the mobile phone Wesley
supplied, then removed.

Ms Beckett, who personally intervened to save 91 users who had
overdosed on the Wesley site, was recently stood down by Wesley
managing director Judy Leitch, after it was suspected she had talked to
the media. She said she believed Ms Leitch was trying to force her out,
a claim denied by Ms Leitch.

"Wesley's outreach service is going ahead as before," Ms Leitch said,
"only there are different staff."

A letter from Wesley executive Jill Parris, to Ms Beckett last month
says, however, that the mission plans to run just a "small drug outreach
service for the next few months".

Ms Leitch could not say what would happen to the supervised injecting
room, built at a cost of $330,000, and budgeted to cost $500,000, on the
Wesley site. She said Wesley "could not promise" an ongoing outreach
service at its Lonsdale Street headquarters.

A Uniting Church review that resulted in the sacking of Wesley
superintendent Reverend Tim Langley last month has urged the mission not
to cut support to clients. It says if any reduction occurs, it must not
be done without "open consultation and alternative sources of support
identified prior to any scaling down in order to ensure a duty of care
to this vulnerable group of people".

Ms Leitch says the review recommendation has been honored. According to
Ms Beckett, however, clients were being merely referred to other
agencies.

Despite Ms Leitch's assurance that Wesley maintained its policy of
"sanctuary and hospitality", Geoff, 44, a 20-year veteran of heroin,
said he no longer felt welcome.

"They want you to move on," he says. "The staff now don't have the
knowledge. If you drop (overdose), you want someone who knows what to
do."

One of the reasons given for the winding back of services is the
expense. But while Ms Beckett was paid around $44,000, Ms Leitch is paid
$178,000, and Ms Parris about $95,000. Ms Leitch's deputy, Mr Peter
Rushen, gets around $105,000.

Executive salaries were an issue in the Wesley review initiated by the
then Uniting Church moderator, Reverend Pam Kerr, earlier this year,
with a decision that pay packages had to come back to that of other
church charities.

A Melbourne City Council draft drug strategy confirms the heroin
problem is escalating in the CBD. Fatal overdoses had doubled in the
past two years, with Melbourne recording the highest number of drug
deaths. The average age of those dying was falling, and more women were
now involved. Females dying from heroin in Victoria had more than
doubled in the past two years.

Ms Beckett, who still comes into the city twice a week at her own
expense, to see her "clients", says the heroin problem will get worse
unless users receive concentrated support from experienced drug workers.
"It is no use turning your back. It won't go away." she said.

---- End of forwarded message -------
- ---