METHADONE TREATMENT DICTATED BY ADMINISTRATORS, NOT DOCTORS

THE EDITOR:

Thank you for headlining the article 'Swanney takes on doc college' [Times,
Jan. 10], about former Abbotsford doctor James Swanney.

It maintains the memory of this great human being in this town.

Some corrections are in order. Peter Hickey is in charge of the B.C. College
of Physicians and Surgeons' methadone program but he's no doctor.

He's not even an MSc. He's got no graduate degree of any kind. The only
initials he can support are B.A., B.Ed., B.S. [Pharm].

His work history has been in the government employ as a civil servant.

I first saw his name on a rubber stamp in 1986 in the Ottawa narcotics
department. He eased out here when the federal government made narcotic
control issues more provincial.

He hasn't done clinical work in his field for an obvious long time. Yet he
wields big bureaucratic power in this area where the art of medicine ought
to flourish.

Close interpersonal professional relationships not bureaucratic paper trails
should manage patients requiring management of the disease of narcotic
addition.

The situation cries out for a big readjustment of strategies here. The
situation would parallel that of an accounting running a diabetic clinic.

Just picture it: "Keep them insulin doses down, too much can be fatal, you
know."

You won't find Dr. Carl Strohl's name in the physician registry either. [He
was part of the team that critized Swanney.]

He's a psychologist. MSP doesn't cover psychologist services. He and his
cronies need methadone patients to cough up $60 a month. It is in his
self-interest to insist that methadone patients must get professional
services. Only big clinic settings can provide the infrastructure to include
his ilk. He may find it tempting to be less than objective when his opinion
is sought in an audit.

There are things that could be said regarding Dr. Ray Baker, but the details
are getting long for this discussion.

Hickey is right when he says, "One of the goals is to normalize life the
methadone patients."

What he doesn't say is that the restrictions he enforces ensures that no
patient can have a normal life. They can't start work until the pharmacy
opens and they take their medicine there. What employer would stand for a
worker never being able to start before 9 a.m. one to five days a week?

This doesn't even address the regular visits required to a far distant
clinic one to four times a month to see the methadone clinic doctor for 15
seconds.

Hickey is many paper shuffles away from reality. If the B.C. methadone
program is "recognized as the best program in North America," it is so only
in the eyes of the administration types.

Here on the ground, the B.C. methadone program is truly an indignity foisted
on the most unfortunate patients of our communities.

You wouldn't treat your sick mother this way.

Dr. James Zacharias
Abbotsford