CITY'S HEROIN DETOX CLINICS ARE GOING BROKE

Sydney's heroin treatment market has claimed another victim: the biggest
naltrexone clinic has collapsed and is in receivership.

Insiders say that two major shareholders in the clinic, Dr Siva Navaratnam
and Dr George Daskalopoulos, plan to sue the owner, Sydney builder Mr Jack
Roberts.

This leaves only one major eastern suburbs-based clinic to fill the
naltrexone niche, Addiction Treatments Australasia, owned by the Sydney
property developer Mr Leon Fink and Dr Barry Landa.

The first Australian clinic to offer rapid detoxification with naltrexone,
in Chatswood, was put in the hands of an administrator last August with
debts of about $100,000.

Dr Navaratnam was one of the first vocal supporters in Australia of the
controversial rapid detoxification process using the drug naltrexone.

Dr Daskalopoulos, a Marrickville gastroenterologist, is understood to have
no direct interest in the centre but accepted a 40 per cent share in the
business from Mr Roberts in lieu of unpaid, outstanding rent on the
Liverpool property used by the Rapid Detox Centre.

Dr Daskalopoulos was the gastroenterologist who triggered a Health
Complaints Commission investigation last year after he discovered he had
accidentally injected patients with the wrong dye during endoscopies and
alerted Canterbury Hospital administrators.

Company documents reveal that the Rapid Detox Centre is one of a group of
companies in which Mr Roberts, a former developer turned medical
entrepreneur, or his daughter, Ms Karan Ann Roberts, appear as principal
shareholders.

At least two other medical centres in the western suburbs, including the
Crescent Medical Centre in Fairfield and the Penrith Plaza Medical Centre,
are in receivership.

National Australia Bank is principal creditor, and receivers and managers
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu would not comment, confirming only that all the
businesses were for sale.

The Rapid Detox Centre opened in 1998 and advertised heavily on radio and in
Sunday newspapers to publicise a one-day stay, quick-withdrawal program for
heroin addicts.

Patients paid up to $8,000 to detoxify from heroin under sedation using
naltrexone.

Naltrexone, which blocks opiate receptors and therefore the effects and
craving for heroin, can also be administered under general anaesthetic and
is used in follow-up, long-term treatment to block cravings.

Last year, Dr Navaratnam, who administered the treatment at Liverpool,
claimed to have treated more than 600 patients in the clinic's first 18
months of operation.

The business is now likely to close by September, when its lease expires, if
a buyer cannot be found.

The first naltrexone clinic, the Chatswood-based Centre for Investigation
and Treatment of Addiction, was opened by the Israeli entrepreneur and
author Yossi Ghinsberg in April 1998 in a flurry of publicity sparked by a
Women's Weekly story headlined "I Woke Up Cured of Heroin".

It told the story of a Sydney addict, Ms Joanne Frare, who flew to Israel in
1997 at the magazine's expense to undergo naltrexone treatment with Dr Andre
Waismann.

Within weeks hundreds of desperate parents had contacted the Israeli clinic
and spent thousands on the detoxification treatment.