New addiction treatment centre opened
Happiness was abound at the official opening of the Seshego Treatment Centre on Monday.
POLOKWANE – The long-awaited drug rehabilitation centre, opened by Social Development MEC Mapula Mokaba-Phukwana, will cater for 54 in-patients with alcohol and drug-related addictions.
The facility is the first government-owned facility of its kind in the province.
Dependants seeking specialised treatment had to be referred to facilities outside the province before now.
The facility will offer detoxification treatment on-site as well as social re-integration and occupational therapy programmes, and many more will benefit from the outpatient programme offered at the centre.
Addicts will be admitted for three months and then follow an after-care programme as outpatient for a further 12 months at the centre.
A team comprising a doctor, nurses, social workers, a psychologist and a psychiatrist will offer services at the centre.
Messages of support were pledged from various organisations and representatives of NPOs, the South African Council of Churches, Polokwane ministers’ fraternal and other religious-based organisations, the MEC for Health, Phophi Ramathuba, Capricorn District as well as Polokwane Municipality and the police.
Three former addicts gave their testimonies with Confidence Mathebula, who is now visually impaired, delivered a rendition of a poem she has written. Angela Salter, from Parliament’s Central Drug Authority said the centre was long overdue, and explained that training programmes will also be offered.
Amanda Swarts, representing the South African Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Sanca) expressed her gratitude that the centre has been opened now and said it was the beginning of a new chapter in the treatment of drug abuse in the province. She also said the treatment of drug abuse was “not about a one plan fits all addicts”, and she was glad about the multi-pronged team appointed at the centre.
General Sam Mokgonyana, cluster commander of Seshego, said one of the mandates of the police was to reduce contact crime, especially against women and children, and the opening of the centre will assist in reducing these crimes and benefit the province. He said he encountered a 15-year-old drug addict at a school last week and now know how to assist her.
He said shoplifting as a result of drug addiction will also decrease.
Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba was glad that addicts could now be treated with dignity as there is a place with quality care where they can be rehabilitated.
“Currently more than 200 people per annum are sent to other treatment centres outside the province,” she said.
She vocally voiced her disagreement with a recent court judgment to legalise dagga use in the privacy of one’s own home and said there was no proper research and clinical trials done.
“We will have to build more psychiatric units, have more lung cancer patients, more women with supressed ovulation and memory loss.” She also said more accidents will be happening as a result of loss of concentration if people smoke dagga and drive.
Mokaba-Phukwana said the facility is there for all the province’s people, as drug abuse knows no boundaries across race, gender, family background and socio-economical background.
She also said 89% of substance abuse patients referred from January until June this year were male, 51% were alcohol-dependent.
She said substance abuse lead to the increase of teenage pregnancies, school drop-outs, financial pressure, broken lives and divorce.
She said addicts could be treated voluntary or admitted with a court order at the centre. She urged parents to form closer relationships with their children and to know who their friend are.
“We will fight drugs left right and centre,” she said. “We must all work together.”
