TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan- An official of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) here appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) to deploy more doctors to help diagnose the level of addiction of at least 29,000 illegal drug surrenderers regionwide.
“At the moment, there is only one medical officer catering to the needs of all the surrenderers and is responsible in determining whether each surrenderer is actually addicted to drugs, and what kind of treatment he or she will undergo,” said PDEA regional director Laurefel Gabales.
Gabales also urged the local government units to train their municipal health officers (MHOs) on how to diagnose their respective drug surrenderers whether he or she should undergo counseling, go for out-patient rehabilitation, or get checked into a residential rehabilitation facility.
He said PDEA needs more doctors to help rehabilitate the number of illegal drug surrenderers as the only available medical officer to perform such cannot do it alone. Oliver Baccay/PIA
