Ice epidemic: Salvation Army Dooralong centre struggling to cope
The Salvation Army’s Dooralong drug rehab centre might well be one of the biggest residential facilities in the southern hemisphere but even it is struggling to deal with the huge number of people needing treatment for ice addiction.
Central Coast
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RESIDENTIAL rehab centres have never been under more pressure with the sector calling for a 30 per cent increase in beds to cope with the “ice” crisis, according to the industry’s peak national body.
With 140 beds the Salvation Army’s Dooralong Transformation Centre is one of, if not, the largest rehab facilities in the southern hemisphere.
But even it is creaking under the weight of constant referrals with more than 100 just in the month of August alone.
Dooralong’s program manager Matt Stubbs has been in drug and alcohol counselling for 25 years and said ice had now eclipsed alcohol as the number one source of substance abuse requiring residential treatment.
“Addiction is addiction, it takes over your life,” he said.
“The issue with ice is it takes over so quickly and they will experience psychosis.”
Unlike long time users of alcohol or other drugs, he said everyone who becomes addicted to ice will suffer a psychotic episode, making recovery that much more complex.
“The detox from ice is a long on,” he said.
The rehab sector’s peak national body, the Australasian Therapeutic Communities Association (ATCA), warns “ice is available virtually everywhere”.
ATCA executive officer Dr Lynne Magor-Blatch said rehab centres were desperately under resourced and the sector urgently needed more beds.
She said some people had the view a person’s dependence on ice could be handled through counselling alone.
“This has not been our experience,” she said.
“Ice is such a complex drug and people who have a dependency on it usually present with a whole range of issues that have to be tackled in depth. What we know is residential treatment works.”
She said based on a survey of ATCA members, it was estimated Australia needs a minimum of 600 beds across the sector, an increase of 30 per cent.
“The reality is that people with severe dependence and highly complex needs are best served in residential rehabilitation,” she said
We Help Ourselves (WHOS) CEO Garth Popple said its waiting list was between four to eight weeks but some rehab facilities were experiencing waiting periods of three months or more.
“We obviously support the government’s clear focus on ice,” he said.
“What we are asking for, is more resources for rehabs so we can get on and do what we do best, which is to treat people who are in dire straits.”
Salvation Army Major Gavin Watts said the sector had to reduce excessive wait times because it was very tough for ice users, who “need help, there and then.”
While his battle was with the bottle, not drugs, Dooralong Transformation Centre participant Steve Taylor, of Tamworth, said residential rehab was the only way he could overcome his addiction.