The president of the Institute of Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (ICAD) admits drug use in Lisbon is “forced” to change existing responses, making it a priority to strengthen teams that report being “at the breaking point”.
While acknowledging the need to create more support services, in-patient and mobile, for people who use drugs, Dr Joao Gulan, however, believes that the priority should be to ensure that “treatment teams are able to respond without restrictions and waiting lists.” .
That’s not the case, he says in an interview with Lusa, noting that “there is a great difficulty in attracting” new talent to a field that is “recognized as difficult.”
Therefore, “mechanisms to capture these resources” are needed, especially as many of today’s tech workers are approaching retirement age.
On the ground, the director of the NGO Ares do Pinhal, Elsa Belo, is calling for an “emergency intervention plan.” The plan, he argues, must include a “non-bureaucratic” response that will allow people to be referred “directly” to housing and treatment.
“We don’t have answers at this time. […] to carry out the task as efficiently as necessary to get people out of here,” emphasizes the technical director of the only comprehensive support service for people who use drugs, located in Quinta do Loureiro (formerly Casal Ventoso) in Lisbon.
“When a person asks […] help, we are completely conditioned in relation to the help we can provide […]. We can’t get that person into treatment that same day, that week or that month because there are response bottlenecks,” he explains.
Claiming “quick and easily accessible answers,” Elsa Belo describes the current system as “bureaucratic.”
Bruna Alves, coordinator of the only mobile supervised consumption team that operates in five parishes in the eastern part of Lisbon, notes that intervention teams are “at the limit of their capacity.”
According to a social worker at Quinta do Loureiro-based NGO Médicos do Mundo, the teams face “many difficulties” because they are small and heavily overwhelmed by “the large number of people using drugs in the city.” “.
Given that there is a “lack of funding and investment” in this area, Bruna Alves is demanding “more answers” for consumers – specifically at least one more fixed location and one more mobile device.
The ICAD President agrees that it is important to speed up treatment processes. “But we can only do this when we have teams on this side,” he emphasizes.
“We are going through a period of limited response capacity,” suggests the ICAD president, remembering that the process of creating a new body as a result of the closure of the previous one “has been difficult.”
This process was accompanied by the restructuring of regional health departments (RHA), whose responsibilities at the level of subordinate institutions will be transferred to ICAD at the end of March.
Elsa Belo also calls for more ancillary consumption units in the capital, spaces that function as “gateways to services.”
João Goulán agrees: “Opening up new spaces for controlled consumption has proven extremely useful as a capture point.”
However, he notes that “opening up controlled consumption spaces where people gather doesn’t do much good, but when they want a different type of answer, they don’t find it.”
The doctor advocates the creation of a “task force” (working group) involving relevant partners on the issue to produce a “more accurate diagnosis of the situation”, especially regarding the “recommended location” of these new spaces.
In the case of Lisbon, “everything seems to point to the eastern part of the city.”
When asked by Lusa on this matter, the Ministry of Health responded in writing that “specific response measures in terms of space are being explored to meet the identified needs.”
The ICAD President recalls that the current response “has been created on a specific basis” and is intended primarily to respond to the use of injectable drugs.
“We are seeing a predominance of smoked meat consumption, which requires an increase in available space and capacity to meet this consumption,” he says.
Even treatments such as methadone are not effective for “other substances that are becoming more prevalent, namely crack,” which requires “some fine-tuning of strategies,” he emphasizes.
João Goulán acknowledges “great difficulties” in “actually” putting the ICAD into operation, noting financial and budgetary constraints that prevent, for example, the opening of competitions.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure that […] Everything will be ready to go on April 1,” he says, guaranteeing the new structure will have “increased responsiveness.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.