CARE IS THERE IF YOU CAN WAIT A YEAR

The need for methadone treatment in a country centre like Coffs
Harbour is so high that counsellors at the hospital are telling heroin
addicts they may have to wait 12 months to begin treatment.

According to a methadone counsellor at Coffs Harbour Hospital, Mr Greg
Booth, there are about 100 on the program and 50 waiting.

"If we opened the floodgates and said, 'We have unlimited space on the
methadone program', probably 200 on the doorstep would be the norm,"
he said.

People usually decide to try the methadone program when they have "hit
rock bottom," through some financial, social or health crisis, he said.

"They fall in the door normally because the money has run out and not
necessarily because they want to change their lifestyle.

"It's pretty demoralising for us and it's pretty shattering for
them.

"We look at an overall reduction in social, economic and health harm.
It [methadone] stops people from chasing their tails, where every day
they end up sick and have to get heroin to get to work. It makes them
feel well. It stops that daily grind of waking up feeling sick."

Mr Booth gets numerous calls from Sydney users who want to move to
Coffs Harbour. When he tells them that they will have to wait to get
on the program, many decide they cannot move.

One 40-year-old former addict who spoke with the Herald claimed to
have spent $1,000 daily on drugs during the 1980s.

Several friends in her mid-North Coast town have no idea of her past
because for six years she has been able to lead a stable life through
being on the methadone program.

"It doesn't work for everybody, but it keeps me on the straight and
narrow. I realise I have a problem and this way, I can do it legally,"
she said.

But she is worried because the NSW Health Department has transferred
her to a private methadone dispenser and because she has to pay an
extra $10 weekly, she will not be able to make ends meet. "It means we
have to decide which bills we won't pay," she said.