Doctors and pharmacists are refusing to provide extra support for drug addicts in Brighouse - forcing them to travel to other towns for help.

A study of health provision in the town by Calderdale Council reported few GPs were willing to prescribe courses of methadone to help wean users off heroin and no pharmacists ran a needle exchange.

According to drug support agencies, the situation is forcing addicts to risk contracting hepatitis or HIV by sharing blunt needles.

But doctors argue their service is already over-stretched and drug users would be better treated by specialist schemes.

Christine Woodley, who runs the Parents and Relatives' Support Group (Drugs) in Rastrick, said GPs in the area had little interest or knowledge to help users crack their habit.

She said: "They don't know what they are doing with drug users and people have to travel to Halifax or Huddersfield for help.

"The drug problem has exploded over the last two years and GPs haven't kept up with it.

"There's little or no information available in surgeries. People are forced to travel to get treatment but because their habit is the top of their priorities they never get there."

Christine Clavering, manager of Dashline, Calderdale's alcohol and drug agency, said no GPs or pharmacists in Brighouse had joined their Shared Help scheme - which involves collaboration between the agency, doctors and pharmacists to help users come off drugs.

Through the scheme, GPs prescribe methadone treatments for heroin users, pharmacists administer the drug and agency workers ensure they get counselling.

She said: "There should be provision in all areas because it can be hard for people to get to Halifax, especially if they have young children. People can wait up to three months to get on our scheme."

The Calderdale Council report, presented to members of the health and environmental strategy sub-committee, recommended the introduction of education programmes to involve GPs and negotiations with pharmacists to start needle exchanges.

But Dr Alan Worth, secretary of the Local Medical Committee which represents GPs in Brighouse, said GPs believed addicts should be treated by schemes like Dashline which are better equipped to help.

Dr Worth said: "Drug users as a group are chaotic, they can be physically and verbally abusive to reception staff and disrupt the service we provide to other patients."

'Ignorance of doctors'

Alan, a 19-year-old drug user from Rastrick, said Brighouse's drug problem was not being properly addressed.

He claimed doctor's were ill equipped to deal with the needs of users and were ignorant about medical treatments.

Alan - not his real name - said: "My doctor referred to a book when I first went to see him about my problem, he didn't know what he was doing.

"He put me on a course of methadone and he said we would have to 'play it by ear'."

Alan said the sharing of needles was rife because of the lack of a local exchange scheme.

And many users did not have the money to travel to schemes like Dashline or Unit 51 in Huddersfield and so their problems went unsolved.

"We need support in Brighouse because people don't want to travel so far.

"There's nothing at the moment and people have nowhere to turn."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.