Grampians region rehab beds not cost effective, says minister

THE Victorian Health Minister David Davis has ruled out putting withdrawal beds in Ballarat in the immediate future, saying they are not cost effective.However, he said, the government had committed to revisiting its drug and alcohol strategy in the 2011-12 budget.The minister’s comments came after The Courier revealed yesterday adult patients had to travel as far as Warrnambool to seek rehabilitation and detox.Ballarat Community Health chief executive Robyn Reeves said as many as 20 patients had to wait for up to eight weeks before being admitted into a program.The wait, she said, could often result in the vulnerable patients losing their motivation.However, Mr Davis yesterday said the rehabilitation beds were only one part of the process in treating addiction.“Residential withdrawal and rehabilitation beds are accessed on a state-wide basis as they are only one component of treatment,” Mr Davis said.“It is not cost effective for them to be located in each region.”But he said, the Minister for Mental Health Mary Wooldridge had announced the development of a wider drug and alcohol strategy in the 2011-12 budget.“The whole-of government Victorian Drug and Alcohol strategy will consider the reform of the treatment service system, including funding for the key components of treatment, as recommended in the Victorian Auditor General’s report in March 2011.”Ms Reeves said the Coalition’s position was no different to the previous Brumby government’s stance.“It’s not one government or the other,” Ms Reeves said.“This is the same story we have received probably for 10 years. It is disappointing.”Ms Reeves said people were dropping out of rehabilitation because of a lack of beds in the community.“Anecdotally, we know people are being referred by their GPs for detox and treatment and are not taking it up because of that access issue,” Ms Reeves said.“But we haven’t got the really good data to support that.” Drug and alcohol treatments could not work fully without easy access to withdrawal beds, she said.“If we want people to seriously address alcohol and drug issues, then they need access to services in the community,” Ms Reeves said.Ms Reeves said there was no data to suggest that Bendigo and Warrnambool, which have withdrawal and rehabilitation beds, had a greater demand for the services.“Certainly there is a heavy demand in Ballarat,” she said.“I think a review of the allocation of beds and the way they are funded is overdue.” Governments need to fund withdrawal beds individually, rather than expecting hospitals to fork out the money from their already-tight budgets, Ms Reeves said.