Many N.B. doctors too busy to treat addicts, says medical society

Providing methadone for drug addicts is difficult when doctors are already stretched to the limit, says the New Brunswick Medical Society.

Currentlyabout 50 doctors inthe province are trained to prescribe methadone, and 624 people are enrolled in methadone maintenance programs. Meanwhile, 628 people are on waiting lists.

"A lot of [general practitioners] might not feel comfortable in this, and other GPs might already feel fully extended, and not be able to take up a special interest such as this," saidthe medical society's president Dr. Gerald Maloney.

Some addicts travel to a clinic in Nova Scotia for help in kicking their addictions. Wolfville, N.S.,doctor Bill Doran said he's seen an increase in patients in the last six weeks.

"I think that services are not adequate," Doran said. "It's not just in New Brunswick, but across the Maritimes in general, there are more patients than there are spots in methadone maintenance programs."

Doran said he wants more family doctorsto undergo the training needed to prescribe methadone, which would help cut the long waiting lists for structured addictions programs.

Maloney, however, saidthat doctors tend to keep methadone treatment separate from general practice.

"Part of the problem with an issue like this is that if you're going to do it separate from your GP office … you have to have time to try and do that," Maloney said. "For most of us it would mean cutting out something we're already doing."

Regardless, Maloney said, more needs to be done to help addicts.

"There are people out there who need help, and if we're coming up short in New Brunswick, in terms of providing that help, then … we need to push that envelope together with the Department of Health and the experts that are required to provide all the treatment and the finances that are required to go with it."