Indian De-addiction Centers Lack Proper Facilities: Health Experts

Most of the de-addiction centers in India do not follow norms and are not trained to handle a lot of medical and mental needs of the patients during the treatment process, revealed health experts. They stated that around 70% of de-addiction centers in India do not have the standard treatment and care facilities leading to chances of relapse among the drug addicts. Gorav Gupta, a psychiatrist and currently director of Tulasi Health Care at Mehrauli in Delhi, said, "It is difficult to cure patients without meeting certain criteria which are set by the authorities. Often patients are admitted to de-addiction centers for treatment but find no proper cure and rather relapse and their condition deteriorates. So it is essential to check whether the center meets all the criteria. Most of the better centers use a combination of several medical and therapeutic processes. Many centers in India are not even able to avail the latest medicines meant for speeding up the treatment process."

Gupta further added, "The medical science is evolving and new techniques like ultra rapid detox, where the patient is detoxed in 48 to 72 hours are being used. Many new medicines for craving and withdrawal are being used such as naltrexone, topimerate and acamprol. However at least 50% of the centers are hardly able to avail the drugs due to lack of resources."

Behram Pardiwala, consultant of Internal Medicine at Mumbai's Wockhardt Hospital, said, "In the last four to five years there has been a significant increase in the number of people addicted to various substances due to their easy availability and social acceptance. The other reason why Indian de-addiction centers were far behind those of western nations was that the focus was more on medicines rather than psychological treatment, which is considered to be more effective. Also the lack of proper infrastructure with lack of trained volunteers is hindering the proper treatment of drug addicts. Usually Indian de-addiction centers do not even follow basic procedures like counseling, mental exercises and psycho therapeutic treatment."

Mohan Surjewala, senior psychiatric consultant at Kolkata-based Down Town hospital, said, "Only 25% of the addicts admitted to the de-addiction centers in India are successfully treated. In most other cases the patients mostly remain in the same condition or even deteriorate. More and more people see it now as a disease not as a moral failing. It affects the brain adversely and can also result in precipitation of various mental diseases like anxiety, depression, mood swings etc."

Source-IANS