Anantnag: Addiction Treatment Facility of Government Medical College Anantnag in 2021 treated over five hundred drug abusers, addicted to heroin consumption. Out of them a staggering 62 percent of patients were intravenous drug abusers.
The facility was started in January 2020. The figures available with Greater Kashmir suggest that in the first year only 267 substance abusers visited the facility.
Of these, nearly 213 were addicted to heroin and the rest only used cannabis or its derivatives- hashish and Marijuana, medicinal opioids and benzodiazepines.
In 2021, however, the number of drug abusers at the facility swelled up to 638. “513 among them were addicted to heroin too,” figures reveal.
This year barely in forty days, 89 substance abusers so far turned up to the facility, majority among them was addicted to heroin.
“What is alarming is that 62 percent of the heroin abusers were Intra Venous Drug Abusers (IVDA). Earlier, the heroin abusers would consume the drug orally but now they inject it directly into the blood,” said Dr Mansoor Dar, Assistant Professor Department of Psychiatry GMC Anantnag.
“Such people then become prone to multiple diseases viz., Hepatitis- A, B, C or even HIV that finally leads to their death,” Dr Mansoor said.
He added that the majority of them were also multiple abusers and had been addicted to cannabis, medicinal opiates and benzodiazepines before they turned to heroin.
Interestingly, all OPD services in the hospital remained closed for more than four months, both in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 waves, still the number of patients, who turned up, was not less.
“There has been a surge in heroin abuse patients in the past five years particularly in south Kashmir and we have also come across few cocaine abusers,” said Dr Mansoor.
He said these patients were also multiple abusers, addicted to heroin too.
The ATF is turning out to be a ray of hope for the people in South Kashmir who expect it to be expanded further.
Only recently a separate OPD was set up for substance abusers in the hospital, however, with no rehabilitation facility, the doctors are forced to send those patients to the Drug De-addiction Centre, GMC Srinagar.
“The Centre should be equipped with more doctors, psycho-social counsellors and nursing staff and a proper rehab,” said Shah Tariq, a local journalist and cartoonist.
Principal GMC Anantnag, Dr Tariq Qureshi said that the Centre was being run on the guidelines of the Department of Psychiatry GMC Srinagar and a 22 bedded separate Indoor Patient department (IPD) would be established soon.
“For now, we are running OPD only but soon admissions will also be done,” said Qureshi. He said that the centre would be expanded soon.
“The rehabilitation of substance abuse patients is the need of the hour,” Qureshi said. He said the hospital administration had already submitted a proposal for setting up a separate 50 bedded de-addiction centre in the premises of the hospital to the government.