[Article] Women injecting cocaine have had legs amputated

Women injecting cocaine have had legs amputated
From ireland.comFriday, 29th June, 2007

A number of women in Dublin's north inner city have had legs amputated as a result of cocaine use, it has emerged. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.

Confirmation of the price these women paid for abusing a drug which is now used by people from all backgrounds came at a conference on cocaine use at Croke Park yesterday.

Joan Byrne, director of the Saol project, which assists women to overcome drug use, said that the cocaine problem was an overwhelming one.

"In the community where I work in the north inner city of Dublin every street and almost every house has been affected by cocaine," Ms Byrne said.

"And if it's not cocaine use it's family members involved in cocaine use, and there's families in huge debt, there are young people under severe threat, threat of life and limb, threat of death. Families are having to go out and borrow money. The whole area is absolutely swamped with cocaine," she told the conference.

"There is a huge health problem among the client group we work with, a big rise in HIV infection rates, particularly a lot of abscesses, and more recently, for the first time in the 12 years I've been working in Saol, a number of amputations have happened because of blood clots and septicaemia from cocaine use."

Ms Byrne said that most people injected cocaine in the groin, and a number of women she was aware of had lost a leg as a result. "At the moment, we have one amputee on our programme, but we have seen a number of others."

"We would know women in our project who have spent up to €3,000 or €4,000 on one weekend on a cocaine binge and are riddled with abscesses because of it," she continued.

"We constantly struggle for funding. We do not have enough staff . . . we try to manage . . . A lot of my time is spent searching for funding when it should be spent actually delivering the service."

Dr Brion Sweeney, a consultant psychiatrist working with the HSE's addiction services, told delegates that the State's response to the cocaine problem had been too slow and that the drug barons were winning the battle.

"I'd say it's seven-nil to the dealers at this stage," he said, adding that the State's attempt to tackle the problem had only "hit the crossbar a number of times".

The State had not been prepared for the problem when it arrived, Dr Sweeney said. But he emphasised that services were now gearing up to deal with cocaine use. Staff were being trained to treat addicts and cocaine clinics were being established.

However, he cautioned: "We need to move quicker."

The new Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy, Pat Carey, said that there were commitments in the programme for government to target cocaine misuse, including an increase in the number of detox beds.