MOTHER DISTRESSED AFTER PRESCRIBED METHADONE CUT

Ann is facing another night of horrors. It is after 7 p.m. and the pains
are starting to make her rock in her armchair. In an hour's time she will
be curled in a ball, shivering, crying and hoping that her children will
not begin to cry too.

Life is tough enough for the young single mother of three small children
without the nightly pains of heroin withdrawal. Since October 1st, when her
GP-prescribed methadone supply stopped, she says her life has disintegrated.

Twelve months on the heroin substitute meant that she had been coping and
raising her young family, she says. "I wasn't even thinking about heroin.
That was it as far as I was concerned. I was thinking ahead. I even got a
little job then. If this thing hadn't happened I'd be off it now."

The signs of that stability surround her in her small, smart corporation
flat. The walls were painted a warm colour by her father. The television, a
present from her family, sits on a new unit, with a matching corner
cabinet. When she first moved in all she had was the "stuff from my bedroom".

But she is not sure how long it will be before she sells her television to
the first taker. "I nearly sold it the other day."

She is buying and bartering for heroin on the streets, sometimes having to
bring her children with her when she goes to score. "And it's horrible,"
she says in tears, so vehemently the word comes from the depths of her
stomach. She worked as a hairdresser after leaving school, and started
smoking heroin almost three years ago. "Nobody put a gun to my head," she
says wryly. But a boyfriend would bring her to a house where the drug was
on tap. "I'm not on the scene," she explains. "I'm a very quiet person."

Ann should be benefiting from the new protocol. She says she is a low-level
heroin smoker rather than an intravenous user. She does not seem immersed
in the heroin culture like a more chronic user.

She has a treatment centre on her doorstep, a few minutes' walk from the
flat. But they have refused to assess her for methadone, telling her she is
not in their designated postal district. Instead, she is being sent to
another clinic, where she is still on a waiting list.

For her there was no alternative but to go back to taking street drugs, she
says. She is terrified her children will be taken into care. Last week she
rang her parents for help, admitting she was back on heroin, so they could
take her eldest toddler as she was unable to cope.

"I'm very angry. Look at me now. I'm gonna have a terrible, terrible,
terrible night. If my doctor was able to write I'd be okay." It is after 8
p.m. and the babies have started to cry. She has heard that someone in a
nearby pub is selling 100 ml of methadone for IEP20. But she has no money.
So there will be another long night, staring at the clock, willing it to be
9 a.m. when the post office welfare counter opens. Since this interview she
has been told she may be put on a treatment programme this week. It is the
most definite information she has had from the health board since she
started looking for methadone more than four months ago.