KOCHI: Several unscientific methods and weird practices, including sorcery, are being largely followed by some of the illegal de-addiction centres, pushing the alcohol and drug addicts into severe health and psychic disorders.
Though it is a must for all de-addiction centres to follow certain set of guidelines as per the Manual of Minimum Standards of Care in Addiction Treatment Centres published by the Federation of Indian NGOs for Drug Abuse Prevention (FINGODAP), majority of them do not adhere to it.
Sources at a few de-addiction centres described the inhuman treatment procedures.
"Certain patients are treated as prisoners of crime by putting them in cells. Patients are given sedative injections so that they fall asleep. Apart from it, they're forced to sit through some spiritual sessions which include prayers and sorcery procedures like chanting of mantras," sources said.
Psychiatrist Dr C J John said, "Some de-addiction centres have designed their own treatment procedures wherein patients are made to drink some potions which make them vomit and convince the families that all evilness in addict had been removed. Addiction to alcohol and drugs is a medical condition and it need to be treated medically. Some centres use obsolete Electro Convulsive Therapy to treat patients. We need to stop such unscientific methods. Many patients are given high doses of antabuse drugs. These de-addiction centres for the namesake provide the name of a qualified psychiatrist as the in-house doctor while they really don't have one," John said.
Kerala Mental Health Authority (KMHA) secretary Dr Jayaprakash K P said many centres never had doctors for treatment.
"Sedating the alcoholics on admission is the most common procedure followed by these illegal de-addiction centres. In fact, they don't know how much damage these sedative medicines cause to patients," he added.
According to Dr John, the only solution to streamline the de-addiction centres' functioning is that the government should set up a Centre of Excellence in Addiction Medicine and Management of Alcoholics and Drug Abusers.
"In Kerala, there're talented doctors with experience to deal with this social issue. The government should form a panel of such doctors for setting up the Centre which will monitor the functioning of the de-addiction centres and issue appropriate guidelines. It's high time for the government to act otherwise, addiction and de-addiction will affect the lives of many people," he added.
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