De-addiction centres in dist struggle to cope with rush

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 9

Drug De-addiction Centre at Civil Hospital has witnessed a sudden spurt in patient arrivals after the launch of a drive against drugs by the government. Dr Vivek Goel, also a counsellor, has been looking after the de-addiction centre since 2015. Now, it has become difficult for him to manage the patient rush.

The drug de-addiction centre, run by Red Cross, was shut a year ago due to unavailability of doctors. There are three drug de-addiction centres in the entire district, one in Ludhiana and the other two at Samrala and Jagraon. All these centres have 10-bedded facility each.

On Sunday, MP Ravneet Bittu got nine addicts admitted to the centre at Civil Hospital. As three patients were already admitted to the hospital, extra beds had to be arranged to accommodate all in-house patients.

Dr Geeta, Senior Medical Officer at Civil Hospital, said the centre was already full to its capacity and they won’t  be able to accommodate more patients. Not only in-house patients, the number of patients visiting Out Patient Department (OPD) has also increased. Earlier six or seven patients were admitted to the centre at a time. But now, we have to arrange extra beds at the centre to accommodate patients. On an average, we received 80-90 patients a month at the OPD but now the number has crossed the 100 mark, said Dr Goyal, the only psychiatrist at Civil Hospital.