“Baffling challenges” from drug problem

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 12

“Baffling challenges” from drug problem

The problem of the young drag addict was almost insoluble, the medical superintendent of Sunnyside Hospital (Dr T. E. Hall) said in Christchurch yesterday.

Dr Hall,' who has just returned from three months study leave in Britain, said that as a clinical problem the drug addict presented a baffling set of challenges.

“I don’t think that anyone has come up with the answers—our best hope is prevention. Certainly to imprison a young offender is no answer, as all this does is to put them out of circulation for a time and they can get into many other difficulties through being in prison,” Dr Hall said. To treat a patient the person needed to be motivated towards treatment. “He must want to be helped, but unlike the alcoholic who comes to us for assistance the drug addict so rarely wants to be cured. A court order to have treatment is certainly very poor motivation.” Dr Hall said that it was foolish to try to pretend that medical services were more effective than they actually were in treating the young drug addict. “It’s a new problem, a difficult one that we don’t know much about.” His observations overseas had shown him that those specialists who tried to help drug addicts found it an intensely difficult task, Dr Hall said. “However they are achieving some degree of success at a prison known as Grendon Underwood where the

prison governor is medically qualified with an orientation towards psychiatry. He has on his staff psychiatrists qs well as psychologists. The line of treatment here is achieving some success.” During his time in Britain. Dr Hall spent some time attending a course on hospital administration and studying psychiatric services in various parts of Britain. Asked if his course of study was related to the proposed change in the administration of psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand whereby control will pass to local hospital boards, Dr Hall said that his period overseas would provide him with useful background. “We shouldn’t, however, copy plans from other places. The need exists to evolve a plan to suit each particular region,” Dr Hall said. A mental health planning committee should be established in each hospital board area to co-ordinate and plan for the community’s needs, he said. “What we need in Christchurch, for example, may be different from that of another region." Such a planning committee should involve members from fields other than medical, Dr Hall said. The membership should include people from nursing, occupational therapy, and education, he said.