Golden Harvest Rehabilitation Centre upgrades to welcome more

After its initial opening in 2011, The City of Johannesburg opened the extension of the Golden Harvest Rehabilitation Centre in Northwold in the City’s continuing war on drugs.

The centre is an in-patient facility that caters for 12 teenage boys between 13 and 17 years old. And on 18 June, as South Africa remembered the youth of 1976, the centre has been extended to cater for 58 patients, both boys and girls.

Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba was present with Ward 101 councillor Dalu Cele and Terrence Makananisa, director of the South African National Council on Alcoholism (Sanca) which will manage the facility. Mashaba said the facility offered a six-week in-patient treatment programme where children received medical and psycho-social treatment.

“The centre is aimed at providing services to indigent individuals who cannot afford the cost of accessing private owned rehabilitation centres,” Mashaba added.

According to a 2018 Sanca report, between April last year and March this year, the centre provided rehabilitation services to 144 teenage boys between the ages of 13 and 17. The majority of admissions were children between 16 and 17 years old, accounting for 65 per cent of all admissions.

“Of the total admissions, 24 children were admitted for marijuana as a substance of choice, 15 children for nyaope, while 12 were admitted for either methamphetamine, cat or mandrax,” Mashaba said.

One parent who spoke to Randburg Sun and did not want to be named, told of her son’s addiction and how it drove him from the family. He had spent a couple of weeks at the centre and his mother said she saw a big transformation.

“He apologised for what he did and understood that he was wasting his time. He will finish this and go back to school again. I am very happy,” she said.

Cele is very concerned about Golden Harvest Park and its immediate surroundings as it had become notorious for drug activities. He urged the mayor to deploy the K9 Narcotics and Tactical Unit to the area.

In the 2018/19 budget, R30 million in operational expenditure and R12,5 million in capital expenditure have been allocated to the Department of Health and Social Development to fully capacitate the City’s free Community Substance Abuse Treatment Centres.

This will also see the establishment of another in-patient rehabilitation centre in Poortjie.

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