Red Cross rehab centre faces threat of closure

Even as Governor Gulab Chand Kataria started his ‘padyatra’ against drugs from one of the state’s worst-affected districts, the spotlight shifted to the Red Cross de-addiction centre, which is facing an existential crisis after the Health Department asked it to hire a permanent psychiatrist.

The demand may not fructify due to fiscal exigencies faced by the centre. It runs the risk of losing its licence to operate if it did not meet the department’s demand. There are only four such entities in the state. The others are at Nawanshahr, Kurali and Patiala. They run on grants given by the Union Government’s Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment.

If the centre’s licence is revoked, hundreds of addicts will be unable to get buprenorphine, a pill prescribed for people with an addiction to heroin. This medicine is the elixir on which rehab centres survive. “Without this medicine, it is impossible, improbable and impractical for us to operate. If addicts do not get their daily dose of buprenorphine, they would start leaving the treatment midway,” said a counsellor.

A peeved Romesh Mahajan, Project Director, has sent an SOS to a ‘powerful’ Chandigarh-based bureaucrat, urging him to intervene. “The state government has no locus standi to interfere as funding came from the Union Government. On a conservative estimate, we will have to spend Rs 1 lakh per month on hiring a full-time psychiatrist. We are now operating on a shoe-string budget. We already have a part-time psychiatrist in Dr Maitery of the Civil Hospital, so what is the need for a full-time appointment?” said Mahajan, who has won a national award for work in the field of prevention of drug abuse.

Experts opine that the centre cannot function for even a single day if the supply of the medicine is compromised. A health official said, “We are just following rules. An addict’s treatment without the aid of a psychiatrist is no treatment.”

Gurdaspur is the worst-affected as far as consumption of heroin is concerned because the district borders with Pakistan. State and non-state actors from Pakistan are using drones to push in large quantities of heroin. “Without buprenorphine, everything will fall flat as treatment will come to a halt,” said a counsellor.

The move to withdraw the centre’s licence will signal its death knell. Residents claim it will indeed be a sad day for the city as more than one lakh addicts have been treated in both the indoor and outdoor departments of the centre in the last 30 years.