Vol. 504 No. 2
224 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of residential places available for drug treatment in the Eastern Health Board area; the average duration of stay; the waiting list for admission; and the assessment, if any, carried out of the success rate of these methods of treatment and the need to provide additional places. [11600/99]
The Eastern Health Board has a 17-bed residential unit in Cuan Dara at Cherry Orchard Hospital. In addition, there is a ten bed unit in Beaumont Hospital. The board also provides funding to voluntary organisations to enable them to provide in-patient and residential services. The main organisations involved are Merchant's Quay who have a 12 bed facility at High Park, Drumcondra, Coolmine Therapeutic Centre who have 68 beds (50 men, 18 women) and Cuan Mhuire in Athy who have 20 beds.
The preferred treatment option for drug misuse is out-patient treatment, where the person, in his or her own local area, with the assistance of counselling and community and voluntary services and the support of family members, can be motivated to break his or her drug taking habit and decide to work towards achieving a drug-free lifestyle. It must be acknowledged, however, that in some cases, especially in the short term, this is not a realistic option and for this reason a range of treatment responses are required. Admission to in-patient facilities is determined following individual assessment of needs and motivation by the multi-disciplinary team led by the consultant psychiatrist.
The average length of stay in Cuan Dara and Beaumont is 21 days. There is roughly a five-week waiting list for assessment at both units, with a two-month waiting list for admission in Cuan Dara and a four to six week waiting list for admission in Beaumont.
In-patient treatment services provide detoxification and early rehabilitation with short stays from two weeks to 12 weeks maximum. In-patient services have significantly higher rates of completion of detoxification for opiate dependants than out-patient or community settings. All who are referred have failed in the community setting. A significant number of inpatient detoxification patients go on to residential rehabilitation facilities.
The current level of provision compares favourably with international figures where the average provision of these facilities appears to range between 0.5 and 1.5 per 100,000 adult population.
An evaluation of in-patient detoxification in Cuan Dara was carried out over a one-year period. There were 159 admissions to the unit during the year and an initial evaluation has shown that 26 per cent of patients remained drug free when followed up after ten weeks. This is in line with research published in the United Kingdom which looked at 54 different centres providing drug misuse treatment in that country and Irish figures compare favourably with those figures.
