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More drugs funding must be well targeted

AMA Victoria President, Mukesh Haikerwal, has welcomed the state government’s commitment to a drug prevention and treatment strategy, but is concerned about the likely success of some of the specific initiatives.

"Everyone acknowledges that more GPs need to be involved in methadone/buprenorphine prescription to provide people with treatment options close to where they live," Dr Haikerwal said.

"One of the barriers for GPs has been the reluctance to treat people with addiction problems in a family practice and the lack of resources allocated to GPs for such work. By encouraging community health centres to establish methadone services or establishing separate clinics one of the barriers is overcome.

"One of the potential sticking points to this plan, however, is that community health centres have been struggling to employ GPs for some time. Any strategy which encourages centres to establish services must be funded to a level where service provision will be realistic and useful. Funding needs to reflect the long amount of time that GPs need to spend with their patients and the associated paperwork, and that such services should be available for more than one or two sessions a week.

"There needs to be increased focus on drug and alcohol problems within the Koori community but whether or not another committee is needed is questionable. The funding is not getting through to service provision and prevention programs where it is desperately needed.

"The government also needs to realise that providing one-off grants is only a temporary help to the aboriginal health services. Funding for treatment and prevention should be recurrent so the long term planning and strategies which are needed in drug and alcohol treatment can be implemented with surety.

"AMA Victoria applauds other initiatives, such as the community education campaign, the subsidisation of methadone for young people, the increase in youth specific services, and improvements in overall treatment access."

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