expert says.

Dr. Garth Martin, a clinical auditor at the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto, has completed an assessment of the Island's drug and alcohol treatment programmes and found them inadequate.

Dr. Martin said the Island needed at least three more addiction counsellors, on top of the seven or eight it already had.

He was brought to Bermuda by the National Drugs Strategy team.

Mr. Alastair Macdonald, chairman of the drugs strategy interim steering committee, said only highlights of the report would be made public.

"Not surprisingly, he felt that our resources at this point are quite inadequate and we needed to build up our programmes,'' Mr. Macdonald told The Royal Gazette .

The extra counsellors were needed as "a stopgap measure'' until an improved system was in place.

In addition to calling for more resources, Dr. Martin recommended creation of two bodies to advise Addiction Services, he said.

One would be a community board, the other an advisory committee to help develop professional standards and programmes.

Without a community board to reflect and strengthen broad support, treatment programmes "got lost within the Government bureaucracy,'' and suffered from lack of funding, Mr. Macdonald said in paraphrasing the report.

The board would also make Addiction Services more accountable to the public.

The advisory committee was recommended because Addiction Services needed to develop its standards, which were only at a basic level. Unlike the Montrose Substance Abuse Centre, Addiction Services had not been through a hospital-style accreditation process.

"They've been basically working in a degree of isolation,'' Mr. Macdonald said.

Other recommendations related to Addiction Services and Montrose were of an "internal'' nature, he said.

Fair Havens, a live-in rehabilitation centre for women, opened since Dr.

Martin visited and was not included in the report.

Mr. Bryant Richards, coordinator of Addiction Services, said he had not seen the report and could not comment.

The National Drug Strategy's clinical audit committee would meet in early August to dis cuss the report and where to find money to hire the extra counsellors, he said.

In the short term, the money would come from Government or the National Drug Strategy's $1.1-million budget.

In the longer term, funding would also come from small user fees paid by addicts and from health insurance, Mr. Macdonald said.

"When individuals participate in paying part of the cost of treatment, the results tend to be a lot better,'' he said.

Health insurance did not cover addiction treatment, but the idea was being discussed with insurers, he said.

Mr. Macdonald said he was not surprised by Dr. Martin's recommendations.

"Those of us who are in the know knew that our existing treatment programmes are very limited, given the size of the problem,'' he said.