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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-02 Daily Xml
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DRUG AND ALCOHOL SERVICES

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (14:54): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health a question on drug treatment and rehabilitation services.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON: As members in here may know, the DrugBeat of SA program has been defunded after 14 years of service to the community, but we are not the only service that has been defunded. We have been given until 30 June to be able to close up shop and refer the clients we have in our program to other services. On 18 April 2012, the minister made a statement that there would be 14 other organisations funded in this funding round and that money would be devoted to drug and alcohol services.

DrugBeat has contacted Archway of Port Adelaide (this is as a referral process for our clients); they have lost their funding and were looking to refer their clients to DrugBeat. Anglicare referred Shay Louise House back to Archway and were unaware that Archway's funding had been lost. The Salvation Army Towards Independence Program has a four to eight-week waiting list. Uniting Communities' Kuitpo Community has had funding cuts and is restructuring, and we were asked to ring back in a few months.

Woolshed has a three to four-month waiting list and does not do any sort of referral process at all. The Karobran Community, residential, had vacancies; however, there was a cost that was prohibitive to most of our clients. Mission Australia only provides telephone crisis counselling. The Elizabeth Mission is one-to-one counselling only on gambling and mental health issues.

Drug Arm, Community and Family Drug Support Services, has a four to eight-week waiting list. GATS Counselling and Family Support, Adelaide has plenty of vacancies because there is a cost of $18,500 to do the program. Drug and Alcohol Services SA has long waiting periods in most suburbs. The lack of coordination with the closure of these services and where these services now send their clients is gobsmackingly inefficient and unacceptable. My questions are:

1. When will the Minister for Health announce the names of the 14 organisations that he stated in the Messenger had been funded so that counselling services, such as DrugBeat and others, can get on with their job of referring their clients to relevant and appropriate services before they are forced to close their doors?

2. Is the minister concerned with the lack of coordination that has occurred with this funding and the absolute lack of consideration for recovering addicts?

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:58): I thank the honourable member for her very important question and I will refer it to the Hon. John Hill, Minister for Health, and seek an answer as soon as possible.

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