‘Methadone decision ridiculous’

Press, 15 July 1982, Page 3

‘Methadone decision ridiculous’

Nelson reporter

“I think the whole thing is ridiculous. It is a damn shame that it has been blown up out of proportion." said the Nelson Medical Officer of Health. Dr J. S. Roxburgh, yesterday, commenting on the news that doctors who prescribed methadone to registered drug addicts in Nelson were to have their authorisations withdrawn by Dr John Dobson, head of the Alcohol and Drug Dependence Centre in Christchurch.

Dr Dobson, reacting to criticism expressed by the Nelson Coroner, Mr Dale Hunter, during a recent inquest into the death of Susan Mary Marment, aged 25, who died as the result of an intravenous injection of methadone, has advised all doctors in the Nelson region who have been prescribing methadone to the I’4 to 16 addicts in the district that they can no longer do so.

"1 really am furious about the way the whole thing has been blown up.” said Dr Roxburgh when the matter was referred to him. “There is bound to be a death occasionally, just the same as there is with alcoholics. To have this colossal over-reaction and criticism of a programme which has worked reasonably well is a great pity," he said. ■Dr Roxburgh said he w’ould see the medical superintendent of Nelson Hospital, Mr D. W. Low, to see if it was possible to establish some sort of clinic for persons on the methadone programme in Nelson. Dr Roxburgh expressed surprise and bewilderment at one section of Dr Dobson’s letter to doctors that “despite repeated appeals over many years this service has failed to obtain the cooperation of pharmacists and medical practitioners in Nelson and Marlborough.”

“I cannot understand this. Christchurch provides addicts with takeaways (methadone doses that are consumed away from the clinic) for three days, exactly the same as they do here," he said.

Dr Dobson said in Christchurch last evening that he had been forced to take action because of the criticism and the hostility towards the methadone programme.

Asked if he felt this was fair to addicts in the Nelson region, Dr Dobson said. “It is fair to the addicts in Christchurch." “I have to worry about 100 patients in Christchurch who are threatened with closure," he said. Nelson patients were not “being thrown to the wolves” so that ■ the Christchurch patients could survive. “I cannot see why the Nelson region cannot look after its own casualties by establishing its own clinic," Dr Dobson Asked about the assertion in his letters to Nelson doctors that they and the pharmacists had failed .to cooperate with the service, Dr Dobson said he based that statement on newspaper reports — one specifically, that methadone had been dispensed in take-away form mixed only in water. (This was evidence given at the inquest by a companion of Miss Marment, himself an addict).