Panaji: For the next, opioid dependents do not have to find the de-addiction center outside the cave and spend money if they want to ask for help kicking habits.
The North Goa District Hospital will have a complete 12-bed de-addiction center where addicts will be able to utilize free medical care.
This center will be the first facility in the state.
This will be arranged with funds from the Ministry of Justice of the Social Justice and with the assistance of the Institute of Indian Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“We plan to prepare units in a month.
Even though one or two private centers for drug addicts are in the state, they do not provide medical care.
Some are recognized as the center of de-addiction drugs outside the cave, but it comes at a cost,” Dr.
Ravindra Patil, a medical officer at the Narcotics Care Center to Ti.
While the North Goa District Hospital did have a 10 bed ward for addicts, most of which served alcoholics and only two beds were reserved for opioid dependents.
New vehicles currently come in existing ones, but with additional facilities and more beds.
Vacancies for full-time nurses and other staff will be immediately advertised.
Patil said patients often ended up going to the wrong place outside the country to de-addiction and rarely returned clean, even after staying for a month or more.
He said there were very few centers like that which had the right facilities and where addicts were treated by a doctor.
The drug care center in the North Goa District Hospital provides OPD services, where the opioid dependents are given a metadon orally after the assessment by the doctor.
A patient needs to visit the clinic every day to take their oral dose, under the supervision of a nurse.
The center was reopened three days ago after remaining closed for more than a month because the hospital only treated covid-positive patients.
Nowadays 80 patients on the rolls that relapse a lot because they cannot seek care when the center is closed.