Page 97 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 April 1992
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At this stage I think it is appropriate to provide compliments, where they are due, for people who have worked in this area for some time. It was Professor Peter Baume - formerly Senator Peter Baume - in his report in 1977 called "The Intoxicated Society", a parliamentary report on drugs, who first suggested a national strategy, which has now been adopted, of course. Perhaps even more importantly, the Health Minister at the time, Neal Blewett, very bravely introduced the harm reduction policy of needle exchange, which has meant that Australia has the lowest spread of AIDS throughout all the countries of the Western world. Both those people need to be recognised for their contribution in this area.
However, there is still work to be done. If a sensible harm reduction approach is going to be taken, it is appropriate that we take action to increase and improve the services that are offered by the methadone program. Mr Berry suggested last year that it would happen, and I think we must ensure that that is exactly what does happen.
MRS CARNELL (11.47): I would like to begin where Mr Moore finished, with Mr Berry's announcement last year. In fact, it was on 21 August last year that Mr Berry announced that a pilot scheme for methadone through ACT pharmacists would be undertaken. That scheme was put forward initially under the Alliance Government and later developed under the Labor Government with input from the Drug Referral and Information Centre, the Pharmacy Guild and others. That scheme or that pilot project seems to have gone nowhere. The amount of legislation required to bring that on-line - a very small change in laws affecting pharmacy and the storage of drugs and also in the laws affecting how methadone can be prescribed in the community - is absolutely minute and yet is still not on the table here.
The positives of methadone through pharmacy have been demonstrated worldwide. In fact, discussions in the ACT have been going on for years, but over the last two years they have really hotted up. We started talking about how we could increase the number of methadone patients on our program, currently I think about 107, to the very much needed 200 places.
To do that we really need to take our stabilised patients out of the program and back into the community. That is also important because it is very much a step in the rehabilitation program for addicts. It is important to get them out of the hospital setting, out of the referral centre setting, and back into the community. It is important for them to be able to hold down jobs, to be able to look after their families in an appropriate way, without having to turn up at the clinic every day between 10.00 am and 2.00 pm, which is often the case and which is certainly the case in the ACT. If you have a job, how in heaven's name do you get to Woden Valley Hospital at that time every day? In fact, in many cases people on the program indicate to us that it precludes them from holding down a job.
By moving stabilised addicts back into the community, back to pharmacy, we manage to allow them to pick up their doses in the community where they live, where in many cases they bring up their children, and, importantly, where they work as well. They can pick them up before work, after work, and so on. It is a very important part of that rehabilitation program.
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