FORMER heroin addicts attending a programme at the Anosi Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Limassol are being given a heroin substitute under conditions deemed unsafe for both patients and their carers, the centre’s nurses said yesterday.
The Mental Health Nurses Union warned that unless the correct processes were implemented, nurses would stop giving the medicine, Buprenorphine to the former users, as they threatened they would do two days ago.
“This is a controlled narcotic substance and there are laws and regulations on the way it can be given out. The way this drug is given out at Anosi in Limassol endangers the lives of patients. Our only demand is that this drug is given in a way that ensures the safety of both patients and nurses,” Andreas Andreou, Secretary of the Pancyprian Nurses Union told the Cyprus Mail.
“Under certain conditions this substitute pill can be very dangerous. If mixed with alcohol, for example, it may even be fatal. The proper way to give it out is to first conduct a urine check to ensure the patient has not consumed alcohol, as is done at the Nicosia Rehabilitation Centre, Yefira. That is not being done in Limassol,” Andreou said.
On Monday, the nurses at Anosi announced they would stop handing out the heroin substitute pill to patients, causing a strong reaction and a four-hour protest by patients who were suffering from withdrawal symptoms. After hours of pleading, the patients convinced nurses to postpone measures for two weeks.
“One option is to stay in bed because of the withdrawal symptoms and the other option is to go out and use heroin to become well. My withdrawal symptoms have already started since last night, I’m sweating and I’m cold because I don’t have this pill,” one patient said.
“Everything that we managed to build in this year, we will have to shutter in one day,” another patient added.
Approximately 35 former users are participating in the heroin rehabilitation program at Anosi, located in the old Limassol Hospital under the supervision of psychiatrist Argyris Argyriou. The heroin rehabilitation program started in Limassol a year ago, after the initiative of Argyriou on the grounds that it was not convenient for Limassol patients to go to the centre in Nicosia in order to get the medicine.
“This is a programme that has given many opportunities, has saved lives and has brought the social rehabilitation of patients. It is a pity if it is stopped in this abrupt way,” Argyriou said.
The nurses, however, claim that Argyriou initially told the Ministry of Health that only three or four patients would be receiving Buprenorphine in Limassol, but that the number has now reached 35.
“The situation is now out of control. Anosi is handing out the pill to outside patients in an irregular way, without a license from the Ministry of Health or the Anti-Drug Council,” Andreou said.
The only centre that is licensed to perform this specific program is Yefira in Nicosia and nurses are asking that Limassol patients travel to Nicosia to get their drugs until the right conditions are enforced at Anosi in Limassol. The nurses have given a deadline of two weeks until 9 March and will then stop giving the drug to patients in Limassol.
“No-one has contacted us to give us any assurances. We hope that within two weeks Dr. Argyriou will manage to reduce drug doses for some patients and send them to Nicosia, and stop prescribing the drug to other patients who have made progress,” Andreou added.
In the meantime however, ex-heroin-users are placed in a vulnerable position due to the uncertainty of the situation at a time that they are going through rehabilitation. “These problems should not be felt by users or ex-users. The state should solve them and not the patients,” one patient said.
“There are many people who are very vulnerable and may easily go back to using heroin. We are very lucky that there were no deaths yet,” she added.
