Withdrawal of Northlands funding ‘scandalous’

“I think what happened is scandalous. This would not happen within respiratory care. This would not happen within cancer services; the nurses and doctors would be on the picket line protesting.” 

That was the powerful response of Tommy Canning, head of treatment at Derry’s Northlands addiction treatment centre to the Department of Health's recent withdrawal and refusal to reinstate the organisation’s annual core funding - £63,214.88 which covered its administration and housekeeping costs. 

Speaking to The Derry News, Mr Canning said: “This is a health issue. Addiction is a health issue. Renowned Irish psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare said it really clearly, mental health was the Cinderella of the health service. I believe addiction is the Cinderella of mental health. 

“Whatever pittance is given to mental health, there is even less dripping down then into addiction. You are sitting in that world where as a result of the stigma which exists around addiction and because of how people that are addicted are viewed and looked upon by society, there is not a great drive to fund the services properly. 

“It is scandalous the Department is doing this in a situation where everybody is telling it and all of the indicators are pointing to addiction being an issue that is ever increasing.

“I am constantly asked, ‘Is it getting worse?’ It is absolutely getting worse and sometimes I get a bit frustrated with the question because how much worse does it need to get? People are dying. It’s bad enough. We also know that you are four times more likely to become addicted if you are born into an area of social and economic deprivation than if you aren’t. That is a lottery. That has nothing to do with lifestyle choices. It’s nothing to do with trauma. It is by the very fact of where you are born, said Mr Canning, who added Ireland was in the top five countries in Europe for cocaine use. 

“We are flooded with cocaine and we are beginning to see the emergence in a big way of crack cocaine, which is a gamechanger completely. That is another level again in what people are prepared to do to get it in terms of the criminal activity around it,” he said.

Mr Canning also accused the Department of Health of attempting to appropriate and redesignate  the £1 million earmarked by the British Government to support the new addiction centre in Derry in the January 2020  ‘New Decade New Approach’ report. 

“That can’t happen,” he said forcefully. “That can’t happen because that £1 million was for Derry. That £1 million was for a centre in Derry.

“Answering a parliamentary question from Foyle MP Colum Eastwood in October 2022, then British Secretary of State Steve Baker said: ‘The UK Government stands ready to provide the £1 million additional funding to support the Derry addiction centre as is set out in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, and we are currently awaiting the Northern Ireland Executive’s proposals for delivering the centre,’ added Mr Canning.

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“That £1 million is very clearly for Northlands. That’s in place. That £1 million is not the Department of Health's money. The Department has a history of this. It has done this with mental health before. 

“It is not the Department’s money to take. I would be very strong on this and I know Northlands would be very strong on this also because The Department did not meet with the British Government. The Department of Health did not negotiate this £1 million. Northlands negotiated with the help of the local MP. It is not the Department of Health’s money. How dare it.

“Northlands is going after this money now. It will be put into services for a period of time at least to future proof some of the services we deliver. It will be for that and for the other services we are looking at delivering. Northlands is constantly looking at how we can improve what we do.”

In January 2023, Professor Dame Carol Black, author of the seminal review of drugs for the British Government delivered the inaugural Northlands’ New Knowledge Exchange lecture at Ulster University, Magee. 

She concluded: “The Government faces an unavoidable choice: invest in tackling the problem or keep paying for the consequences’. Her work highlighted the critical importance of residential treatment.