Budget boost welcomed for the meth front line
Northland’s Te Ara Oranga pilot project, a joint initiative between the police and the Northland DHB, designed to reduce the region’s high rate of methamphetamine use, received a further $4 million over four years in last week’s budget.
DHB chief executive Dr Nick Chamberlain said the funding was good news, especially for communities at the forefront of methamphetamine harm.
“We acknowledge that addiction is a community issue, and have proved that having a suite of services tailored to each patient, while also offering wha¯nau support, makes this programme of treatment and Te Ara Oranga work,” he said.
The 2018 Te Ara Oranga evaluation report highlighted insights into the need for health services, the value of screening at the point of first contact, and having community co-ordinators as an essential point of engagement with wha¯nau and communities, he said.
There was also a positive community reception to police being engaged as both a referral point for health services and enforcement.
“Police are committed to working with the Northland DHB through integrating health and police activities, which is central to the success of Te Ara Oranga,” project manager Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Varnam said.
“Between August 2018 and March 30, 2019, police made 99 arrests, executed 79 search warrants, issued 29 Reports of Concern for 76 children, seized 30 firearms and referred 305 people for treatment.”
Meanwhile DHB methfocused clinicians have been managing 803 cases since August 2017.
Te Ara Oranga’s employment service, Employment Works, based at Dargaville Hospital, had received 116 referrals since August 2017, assisted 48 people into new work, helped seven people at risk of losing their jobs stay in work, placed 18 people on training/unpaid work experience and eight people into unpaid voluntary work.
NZ Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell has hailed Te Ara Oranga as one of the potential answers to Northland’s, and the country’s, high rate of meth use.
“Previous studies
. . . confirm that methamphetamine use in Northland is higher than any other part of the country,” he said. “It’s the easy availability of meth in Northland, combined with social issues — poverty, high unemployment, particularly among youth, lack of housing — that are behind the high use,” Bell said. “Northland is already leading the way with Te Ara Oranga. It works, and should be the gold standard for the whole country. In Northland police are referring [meth] users to health services through the DHB, and it is making a difference.”