ABHA: Al-Amal Hospital in Jeddah, which treats drug addicts, has for no apparent reason refused to admit three Saudi addicts referred by the Drugs Combating Department (DCD) in the southern Baha province.
A source at the DCD, who asked his name not be published, said the three addicts were refused admission after being asked whether they wished to “commit suicide”. The source said two of the three addicts were being treated at the Psychiatric Hospital in Baha and that their health could deteriorate if they were not cured.
“Al-Amal’s refusal to accept these men is impeding our work,” said another source at the department, adding that the DCD is unauthorized to detain drug addicts and only deals with them as patients.
“Our job ends when we turn them over to the hospital,” the source said, adding that the DCD’s role is to assist the families of addicts by transporting them to Al-Amal Hospital.
A source at Al-Amal Hospital, who also declined to be identified, criticized the hospital’s administration for refusing to accept the patients. He added that this is a serious case that cannot be ignored, and that the hospital’s decision not to take the addicts might shatter their hopes of cure and cause them to relapse into the drug habit.
“If an addict is not given proper treatment, he or she may resort to traffickers to obtain the stuff or become a terrorist,” he said.
The source said the hospital’s administration should have kept the three under observation for at least 24 hours as they had no other place to go to and had traveled far. He admitted that the hospital receives a lot of cases and is under immense pressure, but said this is no excuse not to receive patients, especially since there are beds reserved for emergency cases coming from outside Jeddah.
The source said some addicts come to the hospital 20 times and are still received although they do not come for treatment but to build new tissues to enable them take more drugs.
He said the new administration has closed down the women’s section at the hospital and sent well-trained women staff to other places. “This has created a lot of frustration among employees and led to a serious drop in the level of medical care given to drug addicts,” he added.
