by frog
In November last year the Canterbury DHB completed a review of its alcohol and other drugs (AOD) treatment and rehabilitation policy. Here’s an extract from its minutes (PDF):
Justice Clients:
Legal pressure can sometimes result in people reflecting on their situation. Information, education and brief intervention is appropriate at this point and should be provided by primary care, probation officers, prison staff etc. with the support of AOD specialists. AOD assessment and treatment will be available to those who require it and are able to engage.
People waiting for sentence will be able to access community groups (education, building motivation etc) and collaboration with corrections may result in joint initiatives for this group.
Once sentencing is completed entry into specialist AOD services will be viable for those who remain in the community.
Long‐term treatment programmes to provide sentencing/prison release options for people in prison is not viable. AOD services funded by corrections to meet the needs of the prison population are supported and linking is required to ensure adequate transition planning for release into the community.
As per the agreement that exists between health and corrections, reports required for Courts and Parole Boards will be funded by these bodies. AOD services will provide support for prisoners due for release, although this is unlikely to be the provision of direct access into containment type facilities. The support may be best provided through collaborative work with prison release staff and will not necessarily involve comprehensive assessment and subsequent reports.
That is a disgraceful policy. It flies in the face of the principle of harm minimisation and discriminates in the provision of AOD services against people whose drug and/or alcohol problems have resulted in them falling foul of the criminal law. Often these are the very people who are the greatest danger to themselves and others in the community and are most in need of help. The policy has now been labelled “bizarre” and “grossly inequitable” by the National Addiction Centre. The National Committee for Addiction Treatment has also expressed concerns.
I accept that there is usually little to be achieved by forcing a person with an alcohol or drug dependency into rehabilitation if they are reluctant, and that there will also be people who will cynically play the system by feigning a desire to be rehabilitated in an attempt to get a lighter sentence. But the Canterbury DHB’s policy is just a short-sighted exercise in cost-cutting that denies adequate rehabilitative services to “justice clients” irrespective of their motivation to be rehabilitated.
For many people with an alcohol or drug problem, a brush with the law is the trigger that makes them first acknowledge they have a problem and accept they need to do something about it. The Canterbury DHB, by providing “justice clients” with only minimal rehabilitative services, is denying them the opportunity to do something about it. “Justice clients”, even if imprisoned, eventually end up in the community. If they end up in the community without their dependencies being adequately addressed, it is not just them and their families but society as a whole that suffers.
Published in Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy by frog on Mon, March 15th, 2010
Tags: alcohol, alcohol and drug rehabilitation, AOD, Canterbury DHB, drugs, National Addiction Centre, National Committee for Addiction Treatment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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All the David’s I know are stoners!
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Unless locking people away and letting them go ‘cold turkey’ counts.
You’ll Live or you won’t
And Frankly my Dear
nobody gives a damn
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Privately, the is also Ashburn Hall in Dunedin, which handles a variety of issues from addiction to general mental health concerns.
Mark,
it is possible to get help through the public health system, but not all information is easy to access, and some health professionals can be judgmental or dismissive if approached through frontline medical intervention areas like A&E departments.
It seems from this report that bias against those whose addictions have led them to criminal activity is alive and well in Christchurch.
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I am currently employed by a DHB and I’ve never seen anything like it.
This is the right-wing ideologues pushing their agenda by stealth, all they have to do is squeeze the budgets and the DHB’s will make there own cuts, thus Key will look squeaky clean
At the beginning this was meant to be until the new financial year, now I heard that this will go on into next year
So expect more short term expedient policies like this and the Southland one (cutting home help for the elderly) and eventually we all realise that our excellent public health system has been down graded and we have subsidised the creation of a private sector (probably based on the expensive and widely discredited US model)
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The Right in America still love that Campaign even though all the evidence says it was a complete waste of time – Just like abstinence rings.
I bet John Key believes in “trickle down” they are just to smart to say
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Forgive me if I misunderstand – but part of the reason I know longer do Volunteer Work is the mistreatment inherent in so many of our Institutions in NZ.
I would not feel confident in taking anyone with psychological or substance abuse Problems to our Local Health Care Providers – experience has taught me they do more harm than good.
Basically I’ve been to far too many unnecessary Tangi’s where the Parents are present.
I’ve seen enough genuinely horrific things to last a lifetime – not in Oz or the US, but uniquely Here.
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totally agree with you there; my experience as a student on clinical placement in the 80’s in a psych hospital was enough to make me change my career options then and there.
I still know a lot of folk with alternative psychological presentations who won’t go near the public health services due to previous bad experiences, and generally have either learnt to cope through cognitive adjustment, or found alternatives to the FDA-approved medication schedules. (Much of which I believe is designed to kill via side-effects! But that’s another conspiracy theory I won’t go into here…)
There are still a lot of good people within the public health system, but the policy being handed down from the top is not always in the best interests of staff or patients – and I know some psych nurses personally who are under terrific pressure.
Really, the only good answer I can see to this is roll the government, and PDQ.
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Further I agree with your 7.04 Post entirely….since the 80’s Cutbacks in funding have reduced our remaining services to abominations of their mission statements.
I too have found a lot of great people who work inside a System so dysfunctional they are suffering in their helplessness.
A great Book on Med. Ethics is M Scott Peck’s ‘Denial of the Soul’.
I consider it required reading for people who work in this field.
The term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is one i view with a good deal of cynicism.
The fact is that with the advent of the Net, information has never been so accessible – patterns, never so easy to prove.
Part of my shock came upon returning to NZ.
There was a Labour Govt. in Power and the Health Minister’s Office lay between my place and Wgtn Hospital.
Thus I assumed that I had the mechanisms to engage and be usefull.
That Labour Government did not give a brass dime for Public Health.
They had Muldoon’s ethos – ie; If you don’t like it Leave – and Kiwis are still bailing in record numbers.
Our Best people live in Australia – and are respected highly there.
We Need the Green Party – that’s my considered opinion.
Apart from looking out for a few loved one’s caught up in the fiscal frost – I’ve returned to looking after injured/mistreated animals – at least I can BUY them good Health and Care.
More strength to you
Regards
Mark
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Posted March 15, 2010 at 5:35 PM
That is weird Toad!
All the David’s I know are stoners!”
There maybe something to this. If you look at the “Inquiry into the Public Health Strategies Related to Cannabis Use and the Most Appropriate Legal Status” report of the Heath Committee (August 2003) [anybody remmember that?] and specifically look at the index of individual submitters you will see they are listed alphabetically according to Christian name. I use the phrase Christian name deliberately because that seems to apply as biblical names seem to have to dominate and some are particularly well represented. David is one, but so are Andrew, Ben, Chris, Daniel, James, John, Michael, Mark, Mary (if you adjust for the dominance of male names), Paul, Peter, Phil and Stephen.
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