Currently, OST services are provided by the National Aids Control Organisation only for people who inject drugs.
Highlights
- Opioid substitution therapy helps clients keep off injecting drugs
- This reduces risk of blood borne diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B
- But most rehab centres are either empty or running at 50% occupancy
Nearly 600 injecting drug users visit the Tarn Taran civil hospital in Punjab every day for Opioid replacement therapy (ORT), a harm reduction strategy which helps clients keep off injecting drugs, reducing risk of blood borne diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B. The doses of crushed buprenorphine are supervised as clients could divert the tablets and inject them instead.
Balra Pal Sahib, an OST service client, told NDTV that authorities must open more OST centres.
"The authorities should open more OST centres. It is responsible for helping me stay off drug consumption. I tell other drug users that if I can leave drugs at my age, so can they. I was even able to remarry," he said.
Currently, OST services are provided by the National Aids Control Organisation only for people who inject drugs.
"The Punjab government should start opioid substitution therapy in a big way," says Dr PD Garg, head of department of psychiatry, Government Medical College Amritsar.
The Punjab government-run de-addiction and rehabilitation centres comprise of a prayer room, a library, a gym, yoga trainers and a tiled courtyard, fit for a game of volleyball. The expenses are as low as Rs 50 a day. Yet the 100-bed rehabilitation centre in Amritsar has just one client. Such rehabilitation centres have been set up in every district of Punjab.
For instance, the 50-bed centre at Tarn Taran has just 20 clients and there are reports of shortage of trained staff.
The Punjab government has invested crores of rupees in setting up brand new, shiny rehabilitation centres for drug users. However, most of these centres are either empty or are running at 50 per cent occupancy.