Enrolment hit as Gidderbaha OOAT centre short of staff

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, October 15

Despite the state government’s war against drugs, several addicts, who have even voluntarily agreed to quit drugs, are unable to get treatment in the Gidderbaha sub-division here.

For instance, the anti-drug committees motivated nearly 110 people in Gurusar and Gidderbaha village to quit drugs and even filled their forms for the same about three weeks ago, but they are yet to be registered at the outpatient opioid assisted treatment (OOAT) centre at the Gidderbaha Civil Hospital because the staff are overburdened.

Parveen Bansal, coordinator, anti-drug committees, Muktsar, said, “We had filled forms of 80 addicts at Gurusar village by motivating them but they are yet to be registered and get medicine from the OOAT centre. Earlier, no psychiatrist was deployed, but with our efforts now, a psychiatrist comes once a week. However, the staff are already overburdened as a large number of people daily come to get medicines. In prevailing circumstances, the employees posted there are unable to register new addicts.”

“Further, urine samples are collected before 10.30 am and the formalities before it also take time. Once we took addicts to the hospital, but employees said that they were unable to register them,” he said.

Meanwhile, repeated attempts to contact Dr Pardeep Sachdeva, senior medical officer (SMO), Gidderbaha, proved futile.

When asked, Dr Navdeep Singh, Civil Surgeon, Muktsar, said, “We are facing problems due to acute shortage of staff, including doctors. The team posted there is working hard. The issue has been brought to my notice today. I have held a meeting in this regard. Further, I will inform the higher-ups as well. If we get more staff, the problems will be solved. Presently, we can register 4-5 addicts daily because it’s a time-consuming task and the staff have to do other routine work as well.”