NEARLY 300 people in Belfast have been prescribed medication to help them get off opiates, figures have revealed.
From January 2013 to September 2016, a total of 297 patients were referred to the Belfast trust's Substitute Prescribing Team (SPT) by their GP for opiate addiction, mainly heroin abuse.
The team prescribes medications such as methadone and Subutex as replacement drugs in order to help patients kick their habit. It was set up more than a decade ago to tackle the city's rising drug problem.
The latest figures available, from January to September last year, show that 65 users were signed up to the service in relation to opiate use - 10 per cent more than the total for the whole of 2014.
Furthermore, between 2014 and 2015 the number patients treated by the SPT jumped by a massive 37 per cent.
These figures were disclosed to The Irish News via a freedom of information request.
In response, a department of health spokesperson said Stormont's New Strategy Direction for Alcohol and Drugs Phase 2 includes measures aimed at preventing and addressing all harm related to substance misuse.
They added that the growing number of people on the scheme was a concern "however, it is important that these individuals continue to access and engage with treatment services as appropriate with a view to reducing and ultimately ceasing their dependence on such harmful substances".
In October, The Irish News revealed that the use of an emergency drug to save lives in the event of a heroin overdose had doubled in the previous year.
Naloxone was administered on 420 occasions by paramedics in 2015/16 and more than 1000 times in the last four years.
Also, a total of 1,134 patients were admitted to hospitals across Belfast for treatment following either an intentional or accidental overdose during 2015/16.
