JEDDAH, 27 February 2006 — “Saudi society is incapable of accepting women as drug addicts; therefore, it is better to treat them as psychiatric patients and not drug addicts,” said Dr. Muhammad Shaweesh of Jeddah’s Al-Amal Hospital.
The hospital has women drug addicts seeking treatment, but with no facilities to handle them, the women are transferred to psychiatric hospitals. Al-Amal Hospital administrators are seeking a building to house a facility. For now it remains a problem.
There are treatment centers for men who become addicted to drugs. Centers for women are few and far between, and many suffer alone and in silence. But the problem of drug addiction exists in our society, and neglecting or hiding it is not the solution.
Receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital doesn’t downplay the seriousness of the situation. For example, there are special divisions for women drug addicts at the Al-Amal Hospitals in Riyadh and Dammam.
There are many men and women addicts admitted for treatment in these hospitals. There is a special unit for addiction treatment in Al-Amal Hospital in Riyadh, but it functions as part of the psychiatry section.
“The center has two main sections: The first is for drug addiction treatment, and the other is for people with psychiatric disorders,” said Dr. Abdullah Al-Sharqi. “The women’s addiction section was placed within the psychiatry section, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are treated as psychiatric patients.”
In Jeddah, public hospitals actually have fewer services for women addicts now than were available earlier. King Fahd Hospital used to have a special unit for women addicts, but it was closed down, leaving the doctors at Al-Amal Hospital no choice but referral to psychiatric hospitals.
The present situation at public hospitals in Jeddah is such that Dr. Shaweesh advises well-to-do families with women addicts to turn to private hospitals for their treatment — especially if they are concerned about their reputation. Yet not every family can afford the expense of private hospitals.
Al-Amal Hospital offers treatment and rehabilitation for male addicts in Jeddah, but the hospital can’t house another specialty clinic, so another site is being sought.
“Establishing a hospital that can provide a supporting environment for women addicts is a necessity, and we are in the process of searching for an available building to create a rehabilitation center for women addicts,” said Dr. Shaweesh, who also noted concern about the social stigma associated with women’s addiction.
“We’d prefer to come up with a new name for a women’s drug addiction center,” he said. “We can call it a rehabilitation center so that these women can carry on with their lives without complications after they recover.”
More than changing the name of a facility, there needs to be a change in the way that people perceive the problem. “Saudi society accepts mental illness, and the community is aware of the fact that it is a curable disease,” said Dr. Shaweesh. “But people don’t consider addiction as a disease, and society isn’t accepting the idea of a female addict and the chances to cure her. People drift away from the woman addict, and her life becomes isolated, which delays her marriage and hinders her natural development.”
For the women, it is a long road back — and a journey that needs the community’s support and commitment. “The patient should receive religious, social and psychological treatment in addition to medicine,” said Dr. Nawaf Al-Harthi, a psychiatrist at Jeddah Psychiatric Hospital. “We must make people aware of how to deal with women drug addicts — especially after they recover.”
