Anti-drugs campaigner highlights urgent need for mental health and addiction ‘dual-diagnosis’ protocol

Derry anti-drugs activist Pauline Duddy has welcomed the Department of Health’s appointment of a Co-occurring Mental Health and Substance Use (COMHSU) Project Manager for the North.

Speaking to The Derry News in advance of an Anti-Drugs Rally in Guildhall Square, at 3.00pm on Saturday, March 7, Ms Duddy said she could not “stress the importance of ‘dual diagnosis’ highly enough”. 

“Since the drug-related death of my daughter Jasmine (21) in February 2023, I have campaigned for the introduction of ‘dual diagnosis’ in Northern Ireland,” she added. “It is a must - mental health and addiction services joined together.

“We have met with the Public Health Agency four times in the past three years and we’re meeting them again on February 18. Every meeting we’ve gone to, we’ve said, ‘The services in place aren’t adequate to cope with high levels of addiction and bad mental health’.

“Addiction stems from trauma and our young people are getting pushed from pillar to post. For example, if they go into the mental health service, they are told ‘We can’t treat you because it is an addiction.

“You have to go to the addiction service’ but then the addiction service says, ‘No, we can’t treat you because you have mental health issues. You need to go to the mental health team’.

“The mental health service and the addiction service need to be joined up. The last meeting we had with the Public Health Agency was over a year ago in Gransha and we were told the Health Minister Mike Nesbitt was in agreement with ‘dual-diagnosis’ and it would be put in place,” said Ms Duddy.

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In a statement to The Derry News, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said: Both the Mental Health Strategy 2021-2031 and the Substance Use Strategy commit to supporting and building capacity in both mental health and substance use services, to ensure that these services meet the full needs of those with co-occurring issues.

Recent guidance advises against specialised dual diagnosis services. While addiction staff routinely encounter individuals with co-occurring mental health conditions, and mental health staff also see addiction patients, there is a lack of clear, agreed-upon pathways for collaboration between these services. Creating specialist dual diagnosis teams could inadvertently add more barriers to accessing care.

To address this, regional dual diagnosis leads are recommended. A Co-occurring Mental Health and Substance Use (COMHSU) Project Manager has been recruited into the Department of Health to further enhance this work.

A comprehensive regional work programme has been established, providing a structured framework for planning, implementation and evaluation.

Engagement with a range of stakeholders has informed updates to the work programme and identified the following actionable priority areas: service integration and consistency, workforce capacity and training, peer support and lived experience roles, neighbourhood delivery models with regional consistency, improved data collection and sharing, and enhanced accessibility and early intervention.

All progress in relation to the new developments will be subject to current budgetary constraints,” said the spokesperson.

Inviting the whole community to March’s Anti-Drugs Rally, Ms Duddy said it was about sending out a very clear message “we will not accept drug supply on this island”.

“Enough is enough. We have buried too many children and the common denominator is drugs and drug deaths.”
Ms Duddy added she was being continually contacted by families saying they were being targeted over young people owing drug debt.

“That is happening in this city,” said Ms Duddy. “So, the rally is to raise awareness about the drug crisis we are facing because it is major. 

“We have invited Mayor Ruairí McHugh to speak on the day, along with William Burns who founded the ‘One Pill Can Kill’ following the death of his son, Jamie, in 2016. 

“We are calling for tougher sentences for drug supply and the introduction of Jasmine’s Law, named after my daughter, which would increase sentences for drug pushers if there were aggravation factors attached to the supply of illegal drugs, including supplying to minors and supplying to vulnerable people.”