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Doctor fights to build city drink aid shop
By John Richards Herald of Wales - Saturday August 27 1977
A new battle to provide an information centre for Swansea alcoholics
began this week.
With as many as 1,800 alcoholics in the city, drinking is the major
social problem of the area and needs urgent attention, before it
becomes worse.
Leading the fight for the centre is local general practitioner
Allan Hawkins, who is chairman of the West Glamorgan Council on
Alcoholism
"Priority should be given to the centre which could offer
advice and help. People just don't realise what the problem is.
If you sit down and think about it, you realise the centre would
be an investment you cannot put a price on", said Dr Hawkins.
The idea of an information centre was first mooted several years
ago but the first concrete steps towards the realisation of this
project was when it was submitted to West Glamorgan County Council.
The authority approved of the scheme and submitted it, along with
eight other plans to the Welsh Office. That was last year.
All nine schemes were approved by the Government department but
this left eh county council in the invidious position of not having
enough money to pay out.
A priority list was drawn up and the money the council had set
aside all went to the swimming pool for handicapped children in
Briton Ferry. So the information centre scheme was shelved.
But the money granted to the scheme is still waiting at the Welsh
Office. All that needs to be found is the county council's share
- 25 per cent of the total cost i.e. £3,000 while the Welsh
Office would pay the other £9,000.
"We were so disappointed at the time that we didn't make a
further application. But I am going to ask the council management
committee to re-apply," added Dr Hawkins.
The information centre would be built in Swansea. The deputy clerk
of Wet Glamorgan County Council Mr Huw Thomas confirmed that the
group were "perfectly entitled" to make a fresh application
under the latest urban aid programme.
Dr Hawkins continued: "By all the evidence available advice
and information centres to very useful work. This has been shown
in other areas - Leeds and Liverpool. Those who are worried about
drink can just walk in for advice.
"ALCOHOLISM IS A VERY BIG PROBLEM AND PEOPLE JUST DON'T KOW
WHERE TO TURN. THEY DON'T WANT TO GO TO THEIR LOCAL DOCTORS. YOU
HEAR COMPLAINTS ABOUT VAGRANTS AND DRUNKS AROUND TOWN, BUT IF THEY
COULD HAVE HAD ADVICE IN EARLY DRINKING THEY MIGHT HAVE ACOIDED
THAT IFINAL, ULTIMATE STATE."
Dr Hawkins has been trying to get cash aid from companies in Swansea
and West Glamorgan and pointed out: "The number of working
days lost through alcohol far exceeds those lost due to strikes
and so its in the firm's interest to help them.
"One person in every 100 is an alcoholic in the Swansea area
and there are more than 500,000 in the country. The drunken vagrants
we see around the city centre are only the tip of the iceberg an
it has been estimated that they account for no more than one per
cent" of the total of alcoholics in the West Glamorgan area.
The drunken tramps in the city's Castle Gardens could well have
been happily married once with homes and families. Then they might
have hit a rough patch, took to drink and gradually degenerated.
"We want to help people in the early stages of alcoholism.
The tramps are at the end of the road, but if they had received
help at the beginning they could have been cured." Said Dr
Hawkins, who say s alcoholism is a disease and should be treated
as such.
He said it was all very well for the public tat large to criticise
the fact that these drunks were lounging around the city, what was
needed was positive action.
"The sooner we can afford these advice centres the sooner
the problem will be solved in Swansea.
"Prevention is our aim, to stop the tragedies of Castle Gardens.
The Government should provide more money. After all the Exchequer
depends on the tax from alcohol for a substantial part of its revenue,"
Dr Hawkins told me.
"And it's not good enough for the public to say the council
should do something. They are in a difficult financial position
and the Social services Department just hasn't the facilities to
cope," he added.
And vice-chairman of the council on alcoholism, Mr Alan Douglas,
said that although homes for alcoholics were necessary, prevention
was more important than the cure. A spokesman for the Welsh Office
said that an application for a hostel in Swansea was currently under
"active consideration"."
Mr Douglas sees the answer for the county's alcoholics in a three
point plan: firstly an information centre, a place for them to dry
out and lastly somewhere for them to recover.
Mr Douglas suggest that if the money was spent on the information
centre it would save a lot of money in the long run and at the same
time it would be getting o the root of the problem. In Wales there
is nowhere devoted to helping alcoholics. The unit that comes near
is the Drugs and Drinks Recovery Unit at Whitchurch, near Cardiff.
Mr Douglas also estimates that one per centre for the population
of West Glamorgan are alcoholics - that means more than 3,700 people.
And he says there are thousands more are "at risk."
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