“WE can’t arrest our way out of this problem” was the message Minister for Rural Health Fiona Nash brought to Orange when she announced funding to ward people away from ice.
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Ms Nash appeared with Nationals candidate for Calare Andrew Gee on Friday to announce $5.99 million for drug and alcohol rehabilitation services if the Coalition won the federal election.
The Western NSW Primary Health Network would have control over how the funds were spent.
The move followed the federal government's National Ice Taskforce last year, which provided advice on an action strategy.
“It came to us from the highest levels of the Australian Federal Police to local police working on the ground that we can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” Ms Nash said.
“It is really important the job our local police do in trying to crack down on this issue, but we also need to enable people the opportunity to go off this drug.”
Ms Nash said the money could be put to education and research, but the focus would be on rehabilitation.
“Travelling around the country, one of the gaps has been in rehabilitation services, particularly around the length of waiting lists,” she said.
“[There’s also a gap] in access to rehabilitation services in the more rural areas and we're told that there's significant travel times people have to undertake to access rehabilitation services.”
She said anecdotally, more rehabilitation places across western NSW would be useful.
“But it may not be the priority here – that's why we've tasked the primary health networks locally to do that work to see where the gaps are,” she said.
“We want to look at day treatment in terms of how we can use our GP network better to provide assistance.”
She said there would also be nationwide funding for community drug action teams.
“We saw a number of our local communities wanted to be part of trying to find a solution to tackle this drug locally so there will be $19 million nationally,” she said.
Mr Gee said the region needed all the resources it could get.
“It's particularly prevalent in country NSW and it's a big issue in all our country communities,” he said.
“We must help users get off this drug while we crack down on the dealers.”