WATCH | 1,500 drug dependents packed in 550-capacity DOH rehab center

The treatment rehabilitation center of the Department of Health in Bicutan, Taguig City, is packed with more than 1,500 drug dependents.

Not only prison cells are packed with drug suspects who have surrendered; treatment facilities are also becoming overcrowded with drug users wanting to turn a new leaf.

Such is the situation at the treatment rehabilitation center of the Department of Health in Bicutan, Taguig City, which can only hold up to 550 patients.

The drug users came in droves at the rehab center starting in July.

Dr. Alfonso Villaroman, chief health program officer, said the facility is accredited for 550 patients only and persons being treated did not reach more than a thousand before the anti-illegal drugs campaign was implemented.

Now, the facility is fillled to capacity with more than 1,500 patients.

According to the DOH, not all drug users need to be confined at the rehab center.

The DOH is now training doctors, psychologists and local government social workers for a planned community-based treatment or rehabilitation.

“If you take a hundred patients in the community and you assess them. You’ll probably see less than ten eligible for residential treatment. The rest can be handled in a community setting as an outpatient. Meaning their level of addiction is not as high as yung mga makikita mo ditong pasyente (the patients you’re seeing here),” Villaroman said.

The treatment costs not less than P22,000 for persons severely addicted to drugs.

That is why it is important that at the community level the patients can already be properly guided.

The DOH will also coordinate with the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Technical Education and Skils Development Authority (TESDA) as well as with religious groups so that all the needs of the patients will be addressed.

source:tv5.