CLOSURE 'WILL LEAD TO RISE IN CRIME'

The closure of a treatment centre for Maori people with alcohol and drug
addictions will result in more violent crime and prison sentences, Nelson
health officials say.

The Taha Maori programme in Hanmer Springs used to provide an eight-week
inpatient programme for South Island Maori patients.

Drug and alcohol service regional manager Eileen Varley said 41 patients
from Nelson and Marlborough were sent to the unit for treatment last year.

However, it was closed on August 1 by the Ministry of Health and relocated
to the North Island as an outpatient service.

The closure has sparked alarm among South Island health providers, and has
prompted the Nelson drug and alcohol service to write to the ministry to
express its concerns.

Mrs Varley said the loss of the South Island's only dedicated Maori drug
and alcohol rehabilitation programme would have serious consequences for
patients and communities.

Mainstream services already under strain were now required to fill the gap
left by the closure.

Mrs Varley said waiting lists at South Island treatment centres would
quickly become overloaded, forcing patients on to the streets.

The nine-bed St Mark's treatment centre in Blenheim, the only inpatient
unit in the region, has a waiting list of 11 people and is booked solid
until mid-January.

Administrator Margaret Taylor said 25 percent of the centre's clients were
Maori and the waiting list was likely to grow with the Hanmer unit's closure.

"There's nowhere else to send them," she said.

Nelson Marlborough District Health Board forensic drug and alcohol
clinician Carla Lane used to refer criminals whose offending was related to
drug or alcohol use to the Hanmer unit. She said the service had given
judges an alternative when balancing the need for public safety with a
reluctance to impose custodial sentences.

Without the option of the Hanmer programme, more Maori offenders would now
be sent to prison.

Mrs Lane said this ignored a responsibility to rehabilitate offenders and
reduce their risk of reoffending.

"Just sending a person to prison who is drug-dependent is not going to
change their drug dependency."

Mrs Lane said that given the recent rise in methamphetamine use in the
community, she was concerned that the Hanmer unit's closure would result in
more violent crime.

She said offenders with substance abuse problems needed treatment in
residential facilities removed from their ordinary pattern of behaviour.

This was less likely to occur as a result of the closure.

"If they're going to be treated in the community, you're going to see them
continue in their behaviour, which is often violent crime."

Detective Senior Sergeant Wayne McCoy of Nelson police said the closure was
disappointing and a backward step in the fight against serious crime.

"We have a major problem in this area with alcohol and drugs and this, of
course, is just going to exacerbate the problem.

"It's going to put more strain on the system here, which is already
over-stretched."

In a letter to Mrs Varley on August 4, mental health deputy
director-general Janice Wilson said the closure was part of a move towards
"deinstitutionalised community-based services".

She said the ministry would assess the closure's impact in regions where
the unit had provided services.