Methadone addicts hit hard by dispute.

"I usually get mine at a chemist in Ballyfermot in the morning but it's closed because of this dispute. I am used to taking it at about 11 in the morning and it's been a long day having to go without it. This is the first day and I can see it getting tougher."

The recovering heroin addict, who has been clean for more than 15 years, was queuing outside the emergency clinic at Dr Stevens Hospital last evening.

It opened at 5pm and by 4.30pm about 20 people were queuing outside.

It is one of three in the Dublin area opened by the HSE since Tuesday to dispense methadone to addicts who usually get their methadone from chemists closed due to the IPU dispute. Other Dublin clinics are at Amiens Street and Baggot Street.

Patients are told to bring both picture ID and their prescription which they must either get reissued by their GP, or retrieve from the closed chemist.

A spokesman for the HSE said the contract with pharmacists to operate the methadone maintenance programme was "completely separate" from any programme at the centre of the current dispute with the IPU.

"The decision by a pharmacist to terminate their Community Pharmacy Contractor Agreement does not automatically affect their arrangement with the HSE to provide methadone maintenance," he said and described as "highly unfortunate" a move that would "impact on this most vulnerable group".

Dave, who appeared to be in his late 30s and wore a black bomber jacket, slacks and sunglasses, said this was the first time he had had to queue on the street for his methadone in more than 10 years.

"It is a very private thing and now we're back out here where we were years ago before we got clean and stabilised."

As we talked a blue car passed and a man from the passenger seat yelled out: "You're all a load of junkies."

One woman in her 20s, Denise Smith, said she usually got her methadone from a chemist in Camden Street.

"On Friday the chemist told us to come back on Saturday and when I went back there was a notice on the door saying they were closed. They never rang or anything to tell us."

She was one of about three who said they had had to buy heroin over the weekend as they could not access methadone.

"I don't want to go back to using but I had to get something. I was in bits sick."

Another man, John Dunne, from Ballyfermot and in his 20s, said he went to his chemist yesterday to find it closed. He said he was almost finished a back-to-work course, having lost his job last year, but couldn't go yesterday as he was "too sick".

He usually took his methadone at 8am daily and had had to wait until the evening to get it.

"And all of us had to come in from wherever on buses and that, spending money on fares when we should be able to be in and out of our local chemist."

A spokeswoman said the IPU had no view on the withdrawal by some pharmacists of their methadone services during the dispute with the HSE.

Source: Kitty Holland, The Irish Times, 06/08/2009