THE sister of a man who took a fatal heroin overdose after being told he might have cancer has warned that addiction can “happen to anyone” as she called for a rehab centre to be set up in Barrow.

Stephen Greenhalgh, of Egerton Court, died aged 57 from a drug-related death on March 14.

Although the assistant coroner Paul O’Donnell said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove Mr Greenhalgh intended to take his own life Jayne Greenhalgh is “convinced” her brother killed himself deliberately.

“He took drugs for 40 years; he knew how much to take and not to take,” she said.

“I’m convinced that he killed himself because he thought he had lung cancer.”

Tragically, if Mr Greenhalgh’s death had been suicide as a result of being told by his GP the day before his death that he might have lung cancer, it was unwarranted. A post mortem found no evidence of cancer.

Miss Greenhalgh, who lives in Salthouse Gardens with her partner, said more needs to be done in Barrow to tackle the town’s growing drug problem.

"I think there needs to be some sort of residential rehab centre; there's no point dumping all these people in Egerton Court, if I lived there I'd probably think 'what's the point?' too."

Miss Greenhalgh, 52, said work needed to be done to tackle the stigma around drug addiction.

"People are more accepting of alcoholism being classed as an illness and it's the same for drug addiction," she said.

"No one wants to be a drug addict. It can happen to any of us and the tragic thing is a lot of the drug-related deaths in Barrow can, and should, be prevented."

Her views were echoed by GP Geoff Joliffe, the clinical lead for the Morecambe Bay Clinical Commissioning Group, which procures community health services.

"It is a huge problem; Barrow has an extraordinary number of these deaths," he said.

"As a GP I am seeing a fourth generation of the same family where children are being born to drug addicts and then go on to become addicted themselves.

"Each GP will have a different approach and some may view these people as problems who have brought it on themselves but if you look at their life stories they tend to have had adverse childhood experiences.

"We have to view these people with that in mind, these are vulnerable people who are worthy of help."