Pubdate: Mon, 11 Sep 2000
Source: Hamilton Spectator (CN ON)
Copyright: The Hamilton Spectator 2000
Contact:  http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/
Author: Susan Clairmont

FEW MDS WILLING TO HELP JUNKIES

There are at least 700 heroin addicts in the Hamilton area who need
methadone. And only two doctors to prescribe it. Junkies can get a heroin
fix in this city faster than they can get a methadone prescription.

And it's not just here.

Any addict searching for help outside of Toronto will be hard pressed to
find it in Ontario. There is a provincewide shortage of doctors trained to
prescribe methadone, a drug widely believed to be the most effective
treatment for heroin addiction.

Methadone blocks the craving for the opiate and keeps users from crashing as
they stop injecting heroin.

All it takes for a physician to be trained and licensed to prescribe
methadone is a one-day workshop and two days of clinical training. That's
it.

Yet most doctors aren't interested.

They don't want to take time away from their practices for training. They
don't see a real need for methadone in their community. They are swamped
with their regular patients and don't have time for any more. They don't
want to have anything to do with heroin addicts. They won't make any money
from it.

Yup. Nothing glamorous about treating junkies.

Now get over it.

Doctors need to step up to the plate. Think of it as a charitable
contribution to your community. There are people who need your help and
their ranks are only going to increase as heroin pours into Ontario.

Last week, 57 kilograms of the highly addictive drug were found in a
shipment of Chinese duck eggs seized in a Scarborough warehouse. Police say
some of that cache would have made its way to Hamilton.

It is one of the largest heroin seizures in Canadian history.

In this city, there were three fatal heroin overdoses in just five weeks
last fall.

Last week a Hamilton criminal lawyer was charged with smuggling drugs --
including heroin -- into the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is working hard to recruit
doctors into the methadone training program, but the demand still outstrips
supply.

In 1996 when the college actively began recruiting physicians to prescribe
methadone, there were 45 doctors in Ontario treating 600 patients.

Now there are 122 doctors treating 5,752 patients.

But there are still hundreds and possibly even thousands of addicts waiting
in the wings.

There are currently 300 patients receiving methadone in Hamilton, according
to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

About one-third of those patients live in Hamilton while the others live in
smaller communities in the Golden Horseshoe.

Nearly all of them are being seen by Dr. Gary Jollymore.

The family practitioner took his training course four years ago because one
of his patients needed methadone. At the time, there were no doctors in
Hamilton prescribing the drug.

By the time Jollymore finished his training, word had spread and heroin
addicts were calling his office asking for appointments.

Today he treats 250 methadone patients and there is always a waiting list of
at least another 15.

Jollymore says he refers people to clinics in Toronto if they can't wait for
him. There are no waiting lists there.

The doctor must examine each new patient, take a medical history, prescribe
the methadone and monitor their use of it.

His patients must then go each day to one of the 15 pharmacies in the city
that dispenses methadone and drink their liquid dosage in front of a
pharmacist.

There is only one other local physician willing to take on heroin addicts
from the general public. Besides that doctor and Jollymore there is also a
methadone-trained doctor who prescribes to just one patient and another
physician who works exclusively with the detention centre to ensure inmates
who were taking methadone before they were incarcerated continue to get
their medication.

Miranda Borisenko, program consultant for the CAMH, says at least another
350 people in Hamilton have been identified as potential methadone patients
but are unable to access physicians.

And that's why she wants to open Hamilton's first methadone clinic.

Borisenko and a committee of health care professionals have started the
process of establishing a permanent clinic that would ideally bring
physicians, pharmacists and drug counsellors together under one roof.

The problem is finding a roof. Borisenko is hoping that someone will donate
office space and that doctors will get their methadone training and then
volunteer a few hours a week at the clinic. The Ministry of Health has told
the committee that once the clinic is up and running, grants are a
possibility.

So who wants to get the ball rolling?
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