TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines- The Department of Health (DOH) Cagayan Valley is encouraging the public to help drug dependents as the agency promotes its first regional drug abuse rehabilitation center in San Antonio, City of Ilagan, Isabela.
“If you have relatives and friends that you think need help, you can bring them to us. We’re open,” DOH Chief Health Professions Officer Doctor Adelina Acosta said on Thursday, November 23.
The Regional Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Center currently has 15 clients. Doctor Acosta said the center can accommodate up to 100 clients.
Acosta said the center is accepting walk-in clients and those referred by municipal health workers. Patients are first screened to determine the level of risk: mild, moderate, or severe.
“If for example you have a relative or friends who are drug dependent. You can just send them to our facility and we do the screening and at the same time the assessment and from there we determine if they are in-patient rehab or community based,” she said.
Acosta said that only a DOH-accredited physician, who are also available in the regional rehab center, will determine if a patient is in need of admission.
For severe patients, DOH has prepared structured programs such as morning exercises and religious programs with in-psychologists and social workers.
“Pag sinabi mo kasing severe kasi, they cannot rehabilitate on their own. So they need help through the facility,” Acosta said.
Rehabilitation will take a minimum of 6 months to a maximum of one year. After this, Acosta said, DOH has an aftercare program for 18 months with follow ups every week for clients.
The regional rehabilitation center opened in January 2017 and has officially started admitting patients last April. Services are free for indigent patients.
“We actually want to increase our admissions kasi there are a lot of drug dependent who need admission but unfortunately we cannot force them to be admitted,” Acosta said.
Yet, Acosta said that there is no single treatment to drug abuse. “It is not enough that the patient should be rehabilitated. Dapat paglabas din, we have to make it a point na yung lalabasan niyang community is free of drugs and they really need family support,” she added.
Meanwhile, Acosta expressed gratitude to MHOs for their help in DOH’s rehab program. ”They’re really helping us and we cannot do it on our own so super thankful kami kasi tinutulungan nila kami,” she said.
“We in the DOH are focused more on the patients. Yung mga rules and laws that’s for the PNP, and other law enforcement offices. As a doctor, dun po kami concentrated sa pagtingin ng patients lalo na sa pag-screen at pag-assess,” Acosta said. Northernforum.net
