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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Dublin pharmacies stop supplying methadone [IE]
#7518502 - 10/15/07 06:40 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Dublin pharmacies stop supplying methadone October 15, 2007 - rte.ie
More than 140 pharmacists stopped dispensing methadone to 3,000 clients in Dublin today in a dispute between the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU) and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The dispute centres around the reduction of prices paid to pharmaceutical wholesalers, and IPU president Michael Guckian said the HSE had also failed to provide support to allow the methadone scheme to function effectively and safely.
"The recent move by the HSE to unilaterally breach the financial basis of its contract with pharmacists is the straw that has broken the camel's back," he said.
The IPU has called on the National Implementation Board to intervene in the dispute.
More than half of pharmacists in the methadone programme in Dublin are involved in the dispute.
The HSE has put alternative arrangements in place in 11 HSE premises around the city, and it has set up a drug helpline (1800 459459) for clients on the methadone-maintenance programme.
A HSE spokesman said there was "a significant clinical risk of overdose" to clients who reverted to heroin instead of methadone, a synthetic substance used to treat withdrawal symptoms.
Rose Hattaway, of the HSE's Corporate Pharmaceutical Unit said the phrmacists were being "cynical and manipulative".
"It is totally unjustifiable that some health professionals would seek to threaten the well-being of vulnerable groups such as methadone patients," Ms Hattaway said.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said both parties need to enter talks and resolve the situation quickly.
She said the HSE had not consulted with pharmacists and were trying to "barge through a change without discussing the consequences".
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2FiNiTe
ConsideratlyKilling Me



Registered: 06/12/06
Posts: 1,635
Loc: New England
Last seen: 7 years, 4 months
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Re: Dublin pharmacies stop supplying methadone [IE] [Re: veggie]
#7518915 - 10/15/07 10:36 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm not a big methadone advocate I' much rather addicts be taking something like Suboxone or Subutex because I know from experience how addicting methadone itself can be. But this is completely horrible, I can't imagine what those 3000 people are going thru. Methadone withdrawal is the worst I've ever experienced, worse than H and Oxy together. Methadone withdrawals can be fatal, and can last for months. They are putting lives in serious danger, and not just of the patients. Those people are going to get a fix from somewhere and in the state they'll be left in without methadone, they are endangering the lives of themselves and other pharmacies workers. Not to mention dealers, users, and the drug community itself.
-------------------- "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living." General Omar N. Bradley
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
Posts: 7,953
Last seen: 1 year, 7 months
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Re: Dublin pharmacies stop supplying methadone [IE] [Re: veggie]
#7518916 - 10/15/07 10:36 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Give them Iboga, salvia or high dose of mescaline/mushies/acid. Methadone is shit.
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