Ray Seidler The Australian 25 May 2007

MAY 25 2007 

John Stapleton

ONE of the country's leading experts on drug addiction, Dr Raymond Seilder, has found himself at the centre of controversy following an expose of the state's methadone program on the ABC last night.

Dr Seilder has been working in the field for more than 25 years, has written widely on the subject and is widely respected both within the medical profession and amongst social workers for his philosophy of always treating addicts as individuals.

He is known for taking on cases that many other doctors baulk at.

His surgery at Kings Cross in Sydney is infamous for the startling range of people who enter its doors, from high-flying professionals and celebrities to down and out street junkies.

The ABC program aired complaints from two anonymous informants, one a former patient and one a former nurse involved with Clinic 36 and Regent House, both in inner-Sydney. The clinics are jointly owned by Dr Seidler and a Dr Keith Roberts.

The program also claimed that an internal briefing note from the NSW government found an audit had shown that 34 litres of methadone had not been properly accounted for.

Yesterday Dr Seidler dismissed the story as ``not true'' and a ``beat up''.

The program quoted a male informant who was disbarred from the program at Clinic 36 after he organised a petition raising complaints about its operation. He claimed the clinics were ``full of these people you don't want to be around''. He also claimed that other clients had told him their methadone was being watered down and they had said they had proof of this.

A second anonymous informant, who said she had worked as a nurse at the clinics, claimed the methadone accounting procedures were slack. ``You didn't know how much you should have left at the day,'' she said. ``Accountability is everything.''

She also claimed staff at Regent House were unsympathetic to the clients, describing them as criminals and pathological liars. ``There but for the grace of God goes me or any of my family,'' she said. ``I want to see the clients treated with the respect they deserve and not judged for their past.''

Lawyers for Dr Seilder told the ABC there had been no watering down of methadone, no missing methadone and they had complied with government regulations.

A statement issued by the NSW Health Department said the matters were still the subject of investigation. It said an investigation by the Pharmaceutical Services Branch led to the tightening of licensing conditions in 2006. However Regent House and Clinic 36 were allowed to continue operating because any potential system shortcomings had been rectified and the treatment of 750 former addicts would be jeopardised if they were shut down.