DOCTOR WARNS ON HEROIN ADDICT RECORDS

Doctors unaware of the medical histories of heroin addicts could prescribe
them more withdrawal drugs than were safe, the Coroner's Court was told
yesterday.

Meanwhile, the State Government said it would consider a suggestion at the
inquest on Monday that the heroin antidote Narcan be made freely available
to addicts.

Dr Jack Freeman yesterday told an inquest on 25 heroin-related deaths that
doctors had limited access to information about how many of their colleagues
that addicts were seeing at once.

He said he knew people who had been seeing up to 54 doctors at once, and he
suspected that more than 20 per cent of his patients lied about their
medical past.

The coroner, Mr Graeme Johnstone, identified ``doctor-shopping'' as a key
risk factor in heroin deaths when he opened the inquest on Monday. Multiple
scripts meant addicts could endanger their lives by mixing other drugs with
heroin.

Dr Michael McDonough, of the North-Western Health Care Centre at Footscray,
said detoxification programs had a limited role to play because they were so
expensive and addicts were rarely cured.

Dr Freeman and Dr McDonough were giving evidence in an inquest on Baskel
Sammut, whose body was found in his car on 14 September last year after he
overdosed on heroin. The coroner's assistant, Senior-Constable John Gibson,
said Dr Freeman was one of six doctors that Mr Sammut saw.

A spokeswoman for the Health Minister, Mr Rob Knowles, said the Government
would consider Monday's suggestion by Dr Bill Woods to make Narcan more
accessible.