City of Johannesburg opens treatment centre in Eldos
These clinics will provide free treatment, in the main, because these are poor areas and outpatients would not be able to afford the costs associated with treatment.
It is no secret that drug dealers or ‘merchants’ in local parlance have had a stranglehold on townships like Eldorado Park for more than a decade now. Residents know these dealers of destruction and death by name and could readily point them out in a police line-up but sadly, many fear reprisals and opt to look the other way.
Many young lives have been ruined by addiction. The discarded bags bearing traces of powdery drugs litter the streets and young and old addicts scout yards looking for anything from a Pikitup dustbin to washing hanging on the clotheslines to sell.
The ‘merchants’, oblivious to the destroyed lives, are spawning a generation of youth who are heavily dependent on ‘tik’, cat and other drugs.
The City of Johannesburg, in response to the exploding drug crisis, opened the Eldorado Park Community Based Substance Abuse Treatment Centre on June 6 at the Eldorado Park Extension Nine Clinic, as the battle to make inroads in the war on drugs intensifies.
After the Anti-Drug Summit held in November last year, during which the City’s Integrated Substance Abuse Strategy and the Local Drug Action Committee was launched, the department of health and social development, under the leadership of member of the mayoral committee, Dr Mpho Phalatse, long-term plans were unveiled to roll-out 33 outpatient rehabilitation facilities in townships like Edorado Park, Westbury, Riverpark and Joubert Park Clinics.
According to City mayor Herman Mashaba’s office, these clinics will provide free treatment, in the main, because these are poor areas and outpatients would not be able to afford the costs associated with treatment.
Phalatse said at the launch, “There is a great need for the establishment of Community Based Rehabilitation Substance Abuse Treatment Centres to compliment services rendered by both the private and state-owned rehabilitation centres, due to exorbitant costs that render these facilities inaccessible to our indigent residents.”
“It is for this reason that the City adopted a multi-disciplinary intervention program seeking to reduce substance abuse in communities.”
He added, “The City’s substance abuse treatment program was benchmarked against both local and international programs, including the city of Cape Town, as history has demonstrated that there is no single solution to this complicated and far-reaching issue affecting every community within our City.”
This new treatment facility is by no means an end to the drug scourge, but residents remain optimistic that it is a step in the right direction if communities like Eldorado Park can be restored and turned into drug-free zones where our children can flourish.
LISTEN: Councillor Peter Rafferty adds his views about the new treatment centre.
