Dr. Austin O’Carroll was a youth worker in inner city Dublin in the 1980s.
Out of one group of 15 young people he worked with at the time, seven later died as a result of drugs.
“It just shows you how bad drug addiction was in the inner city then … there are some families who have lost four kids out of five,” O’Carroll said.
He was speaking at the AGM of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), which took place in Dublin yesterday and today.
O’Carroll is a GP based at Mountjoy Street Family Practice in Dublin city. He’s the programme director at the North Dublin City GP Training Scheme and founded Safetynet Primary Care – a medical charity that delivers care to homeless people, drug users and migrants.
O’Carroll noted that there is a higher incidence of several conditions among homeless people, compared with the general population, such as HIV, diabetes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (a lung condition known as COPD) and mental health issues.
“The health statistics for homeless people are just appalling,” he said.
Source: Órla Ryan, The Journal.ie, 26/05/18
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