Eoghan Murphy
Question:236. Deputy Eoghan Murphy asked the Minister for Health if the Health Service Executive has a policy on the location of its drug rehabilitation clinics. [50691/12]
View answerThursday, 15 November 2012
Questions (236)
Written answers
An objective of the National Drugs Strategy 2009-16 is to develop a national treatment and rehabilitation service that provides drug free and harm reduction approaches for problem substance users and to encourage problem substance users to engage with, and avail of, such services.
To this end the HSE provides a variety of drug treatment interventions to meet the needs of individual drug users. These include interventions to reduce drug-related harm such as needle exchange provision, together with evidence-based treatment options such as opioid substitution, counselling and community and residential rehabilitation initiatives.
The treatment settings utilised include:
- primary care through General Practitioners and community pharmacies;
- satellite clinics that facilitate opioid substitution through community pharmacies;
- treatment centres where opioid substitution treatment is dispensed on site; and
- residential rehabilitation facilities.
The HSE recognises that drug treatment should be provided at the lowest level of complexity, matching the patient's needs and as close to the patient's home as possible. In the past few years the HSE has systematically reviewed waiting lists with a view to maximising the utilisation of existing services and developing new services where required. Arising from this additional services have been made available in Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Cork, Tralee, Limerick and Dundalk, greatly enhancing the drug treatment options for people in these areas.
The HSE will continue to review the overall situation with a view maximising the availability of treatment for problem drug users in line with available resources.