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‘Lock up alcoholics for their own good’
A CONSERVATIVE councillor has called for alcoholics and drug addicts to be sectioned for their own safety after watching her brother struggle with a booze addiction before his fatal heart attack.
Councillor Lulu Mitchell told of her personal pain at feeling powerless to help her brother, former Butlins Red Coat Tony Sweet.
Mr Sweet, a father-of-three, died two years ago at the age of 50 after battling years of chronic alcoholism.
Cllr Mitchell had asked health authorities to section him but found no laws existed to cover compulsory confinement and treatment of alcoholics.
Cllr Mitchell, who visited her brother’s grave on Saturday to mark his birthday, said: “We had the mental health people around and they said they couldn’t section him because his problems were alcohol-related.
“But he was so far gone he was absolutely off the planet, he didn’t know what he was saying. They had to take him to hospital in an ambulance.”
Mr Sweet, who lived in Kentish Town, was forced to give up his work as an entertainment manager because of his drinking.
Cllr Mitchell said: “It’s hard. You feel like your hands are tied, you’re clutching at everything. They look at you like you’re mad when you ask why can’t someone be sectioned.”
Her comments come after Camden’s Alcohol Strategy 2007 revealed the borough, which has an estimated 22,000 problem drinkers, has the highest rate of alcohol-related male death rates in London.
Cllr Mitchell said: “I see families day in, day out, that have been destroyed. In Gospel Oak 90 per cent of people I know have a dependent either on drugs or drinking.
“They are dying and they are told they are dying. With my brother, we knew he was going to die but he wouldn’t go into rehab and the waiting list was too long.
“To be sober for three months might give them a chance to turn around their life.
She added: “They (non-alcoholics) tend to see a few drinkers on the street but I don’t think they realise the severity of losing a family member in that way and thinking it could have been prevented. I can’t see any other end to it. They are always a danger to themselves if they have an addiction. You know they are going to die and you just have to sit there and watch it happen.
“I’ll keep on raising this because I’ve seen the many families that have been destroyed by death in this way.”
Lib Dem councillor Arthur Graves, who sits on the Town Hall’s Health Scrutiny Committee, said: “I can understand where Lulu’s coming from, but I’ve this real problem with locking someone up. I appreciate that when you see someone killing themselves it’s never a nice thing. Unfortunately it’s their life.
“Obviously the person is doing mental damage to their family but we all do that. Unless they are actually doing physical harm I don’t think they should be sectioned.
“I don’t think the alcohol strategy we’ve had in Camden has ever gone far enough. We should spend as much as we possibly can on alcohol education and care.
“I think our strategy still has far to go but at the end of the day there’s still the big issue of securing funding.” |
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