World focus on `ice' care
MICHAEL OWEN, POLITICAL REPORTER
November 19, 2007 01:15am
A SOUTH Australian plan to deal with agitated "ice" users who turn up at hospitals is set to be implemented around the world.
SA experts designed a treatment plan for the World Health Organisation to separate delusional, paranoid and agitated methamphetamine users from other patients.
The practise, a key part of which is putting users in a quiet area to sleep off the effects of the drug, is already in place at all public hospitals in SA and is attracting interstate and international interest. It is designed to ease pressure on hospital emergency departments and involves taking patients affected by drugs out of public areas at all major hospitals and putting them in "quiet areas".
"What they need is restorative sleep," said Associate Professor Robert Ali, the clinical services director of Drug and Alcohol Services SA.
The specialised treatment facilities are monitored by security guards as many of the patients at emergency departments with psychosis from methamphetamine use are in a violent or agitated state.
This comes as a Medical Journal of Australia report finds ice addicts can be so violent that emergency hospital staff should have security guards and personal alarms on hand to keep themselves safe. The MJA report said just one in five ice users cooperated with staff and one-fifth were aggressive, violent and self-destructive. The remainder displayed signs of anxiety, restlessness and agitation.
SA research has found more than a quarter of patients who attended the Royal Adelaide Hospital in an intoxicated state were under the influence of amphetamines or more pure methamphetamines, including the highly addictive "ice".
The treatment plan, which underwent trials at RAH last year, is now routinely being adopted at all metropolitan and country public hospitals in SA.
Dr Ali said the latest reports from hospitals indicated the ice problem might have peaked, with some evidence of a decline in the number of people presented at emergency departments with psychosis from methamphetamine use.
"While we developed the guidelines at a time when people were concerned about an increasing problem, the guidelines appear to be helpful in having reduced the problem," he said.
The plan was so effective, Dr Ali will be the keynote speaker at the World Psychiatric Association International Congress in Melbourne from November 28.
