Merchants Quay Ireland fears relapse and deaths among ‘very vulnerable demographic’
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Derek (35) had been “stable, off heroin” for the past five months and was to start a residential detoxification programme next week.
“I’d been working so hard to stay stable, stay clean,” he says.
He had stayed away from friends “who drink” and was taking 30ml of methadone a day through a Health Service Executive programme.
Two weeks ago, however, he was told his detox place had been cancelled due the coronavirus outbreak.
“I’m back using heroin. Everything that was helping me is gone. The [Narcotics Anonymous] meetings are all cancelled. The project I was going to is closed . . . It was the structure: having to get up in the morning and be somewhere distracts your mind from the addiction,” he says.
“When I was told I wasn’t getting into the treatment it was a kick. It was like, ‘What’s the point?’.”
Asked what he thinks will happen to him if the closure of services for people addicted to illicit drugs continues for long, he sighs: “I’ll probably end up dead somewhere.”
Derek speaks for many drug users and recovering addicts cut off from key supports. His situation exemplifies what many working in services fear, says Laurence Moloney, manager of the Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) needle exchange in Dublin. The worry is that there will be relapses and perhaps deaths among an “already very vulnerable demographic” if the shutdown drags on.
Source: Kitty Holland, The Irish Times, 01/04/20
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