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Manitoba addictions expert quits job

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 12:11am
CBC News
 
One of Manitoba's foremost experts on addictions is leaving her job out of frustration.
 
Dr. Lindy Lee said the addictions unit at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre is overwhelmed with people addicted to opiates such as OxyContin and codeine.
 
The unit needs to be expanded into a full clinic to deal with the growing demand, she said, noting that staff are so overwhelmed they can't assist people when they first call for help.
 
"It needs a whole organized clinic…an outpatient clinic. And although we've asked for that, it's not happening and the workload is no longer manageable," Lee said.
 

Overdoses surge for addicts awaiting methadone treatment

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 11:20pm
By Jen Skerritt, Winnipeg Free Press
 
WINNIPEG — Accidental overdoses of oxycodone and fentanyl have killed at least 25 Manitobans in the last two years, raising fears that more people will die awaiting treatment as waiting lists continue to soar.
 
New data from the Chief Medical Examiner's Office reveals the number of accidental prescription opiate overdoses is on the rise. In 2008, 10 people died following accidental overdoses of oxycodone and fentanyl. Preliminary data from 2009 indicates that number rose to at least 15 last year, and some toxicology reports haven't been finalized yet.
 
Oxycodone is a narcotic pain reliever included in such prescription drugs as OxyContin and Percocet.
 

"It saved my life": Methadone treatment program

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 5:19am
By: JIM DAY, The Guardian
 
When the methadone maintenance treatment program was first piloted on P.E.I. in 2004, Dr. Don Ling was expecting many failures.
 
Ling, a medical consultant with the Provincial Addictions Treatment Facility (PATF), thought he was being optimistic in hoping for just half the patients in the program to emerge as "success stories'. That would, of course, leave a whopping 50 per cent to continue to wallow in their troubled world of drug addiction.
 
Ling's initial forecast has been proven wrong -- pleasantly so, in fact.
 
"I think the success of this program is 80 per cent plus,' he said.
 

First Canadian guidelines issued for opioid painkillers

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 7:00am
By: Carly Weeks, Globe and Mail
 
The first Canadian guidelines have been created to keep powerful opioid painkillers out of reach of potential abusers and put them into the hands of patients who need them.
 
The guidelines urge doctors to thoroughly assess patients before prescribing the painkilling drugs and closely monitor them to mitigate risks of abuse, addiction and overdose. Doctors must also stop prescribing opioids if patients don’t respond to treatment or there is a serious risk of addiction, misuse or other problems.
 

First free heroin clinic opens in Denmark

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 02/23/2010 - 6:09pm
AFP
 
COPENHAGEN – After years of contention, Denmark on Monday opened its first clinic equipped to distribute free heroin under medical supervision to people heavily addicted to the drug.
 
The Scandinavian country joins a number of countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany to allow prescriptions for medicinal heroin, or diamorphine, to be written out to a small group of addicts so hooked on the substance that more traditional substitutes like methadone have no effect.
 
The clinic is set to serve only 120 of some 300 hard-core heroin addicts, or only about one percent of all drug addicts in the country.
 

Doctor stigmatizing addict mothers, group says

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 5:08pm

Please do your dying elsewhere

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 01/28/2010 - 5:56pm
Federal interference threatens safe-injection facility, again
 
By Tomas Borsa, TheSheaf.com
 
The federal government recently awoke from its catnap, and while rubbing their eyes and yawning contentedly, attempted to cut funding to Insite, Vancouver’s controversial safe-injection facility. For the time being at least, it will remain open since the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

Training Afghan police top priority

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 4:21pm
By Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service
 
If the mission commanded by the most senior Canadian soldier in Afghanistan fails, most observers agree there is a strong possibility that the war against the Taliban will be lost.
 
Maj.-Gen. Mike Ward of Ottawa has the daunting task of rapidly reforming and expanding Afghanistan's much-maligned national police, which now numbers approximately 97,000. Yet the target set last week by the Afghan government, the UN and NATO is to have 134,000 police on the beat by the end of 2011.
 
Even if everything works out perfectly, getting the police from here to there on such a tight timetable is a herculean undertaking.

More addicts being treated

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 6:16am

By: Andrew McGilligan, Telegraph-Journal

SAINT JOHN - The methadone clinic at St. Joseph's Community Health Centre has been "a wonderful success," says the regional director of ethics services for Horizon Health Network.

And Tim Christie has the numbers to back that up.

The addition of the uptown clinic, in operation for less than five months, has more than doubled the number of people in the city receiving treatment and slashed wait lists for treatment from six to 10 months to just a couple of weeks.

Methadone helps treat opiate addicts - those dependent on drugs such as Dilaudid and heroin.

"If you go back five months, there (were) only about 140 people in Saint John receiving methadone treatment and there were literally hundreds of people waiting to get into treatment," Christie said.

Nursing guideline helps overcome stigma of Methadone

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 6:46pm

Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario

 TORONTO, Dec. 1 /CNW/ - A pregnant woman walks into a hospital in early labour. She feels nauseated and achy; her contractions are 20 minutes apart. There is more to her story than meets the eye. She is on methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) and wasn't able to pick up her daily dose at the pharmacy this morning. Although her story may be hard to believe she is one of the estimated 17,000 clients in Ontario currently receiving MMT. Methadone is a legal substitute therapy for patients addicted to opioids, such as heroin, and prescription narcotics like OxyContin.

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