METHADONE BENEFITS TO BE CUT

Health: Province Plans to Limit Travel Subsidies to 18 Months for
Patients Attending Daily Clinics

SAINT JOHN - Craig McInnis spends about $210 every month to make the
daily journey from his home near the Saint John airport to Prince
Edward Guardian Pharmacy to take his dose of methadone.

He arrives at the clinic, tucked away at the back of the pharmacy,
sits on a chair and waits.

There isn't much to look at on the walls, except for shapes cut from
bristol board, posted to remind patients how to behave: be
respectful, leave pets outside and if you come without a way to pay
for your dose, you don't get your drink.

When it's ready, he downs his methadone mixed with orange juice.

McInnis is addicted to Dilaudid, a painkiller often prescribed after
surgery. He spent a year on methadone and thought he recovered from
his addiction, but he had to go back on the program last March.

The drug doesn't make him high like Dilaudid does but it helps him
deal with the cravings and sickness that comes with withdrawal.

In 18 months, if McInnis hasn't recovered, he may not be able to make
it to his daily treatments.

The provincial government has launched a new methadone maintenance
benefit program that sets an 18-month limit on how long methadone
patients can receive travel benefits to get back and forth to the
pharmacy every day.

The new policy has also capped the benefits, which can include bus
passes or reimbursements for gas or taxis, at $200 a month.

Department of Social Development spokesman Mark Barbour said the
policy changed because the old one was "all over the map" and the
number of people using it has been increasing.

In 2004, 181 people used the travel expenses, compared to 1,328 people in 2011.

"This level of growth is unsustainable, hence why we've decided to
put a cap on it of $200 a month for over 18 months," Barbour said.

He couldn't say how much the department is saving by changing the policy.

"The savings that we're finding are not measured out in dollars.

"They're measured out in terms of sustainability for the travel
program in a whole for all New Brunswickers that need the help."

McInnis receives $100 a month to pay for his travel to get his
methadone. If he doesn't have a job when his time with travel
benefits runs out - he finds it hard to work until he's closer to the
end of his treatment - he isn't sure he'll be able to get to his methadone.

"It's not right. If people need help, they need help. We all need
help just the same as if you've got another health problem. It is a disease."

The department set the time limit at 18 months, Barbour said, because
it's "an agreed upon requirement of time to stabilize somebody and
have them recover."

He said the longest someone has been on methadone and receiving the
travel benefits is seven years and he questioned whether someone
would need to be on it for even three years.

Setting the time limit, he added, is an incentive for clients to not
miss any doses and finish the program.

"Individual cases can and will be reviewed at the 18 month point to
determine whether the travel expense will continue to be covered."

But Julie Dingwell, executive director of AIDS Saint John, said
recovery time depends on the person.

"The optimum we know from studies around the world for people to be
on methadone minimally is two years," she said.

"To suggest that people will get in and get out in 18 months, that's
not based on any science. That's based on a wish of the department to
cut back spending, but it's not based on reality."

Dingwell questioned who the government expects to pick up the cost of
addicts' transportation to methadone clinics once they reach the
18-month limit. They could die if they miss more than three doses and
keep taking the treatment, she said, because their bodies build up a
tolerance to it.

"If they come off methadone before they're ready to come off
methadone, it's possible that they'll return to the life they had before.

"If we're to be judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us,
we're not going to be judged very well in New Brunswick."