DOH TRC Center director, Dr. Marvin Diokno, said the statistics of patient admission in the facility is growing year in and year out since he assumed his post in 2009. But he was quick to clarify that the increase is not completely due to a perceived vibrancy in the illegal drug trade, but also due to many “positive” factors. In fact, the increase of patient admission at the DOH TRH Center was due to referrals from former patients, municipal health officers, and word of mouth, which all intensified public awareness of the existence of the institution.
Diokno even said that a great number of patients, who pay up to PhP25,000 per month in private treatment and rehabilitation facilities, have moved to the DOH TRH Center, where they are only charged PhP3,000 per month for their residential treatment that runs for a minimum of eight months. And thanks to Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, indigent patients get the treatment for free while other patients can apply for discount grants depending on their socio–economic status.
DOH TRH Center program director, Dr. Alfonso Villaroman, underscored that it is only a misconception that patients are treated violently in government–run treatment and rehabilitation centers. He said patients who were mostly deviating from the treatment facility’s regulations or those who have illegally left to evade rehabilitation were the ones who “lie” on the real state of their treatment to justify their resistance.
Diokno and Villaroman said that treatment and rehabilitation in government–run facilities have improved. Currently, the DOH TRH Center utilizes the therapeutic community modality, which originated in the United States where it was highly implemented. “This modality puts a patient in a community with an established set of rules that he has to follow and uses peer pressure as a mode to instill changes. The set of behaviors acquired in the community is expected to sync into the patient’s persona later on,” Villaroman shared. “If it was peer pressure that drove you to use illegal drugs, it is also peer pressure that will help you unlearn it if you put yourself into that community or environment,” he added.
The officials also said that recovery from drug, alcohol and several other types of addiction is a life–long struggle that may entail multiple re–admissions due to addiction’s nature as a chronic relapsing disorder. “Re–admission to a treatment facility is not considered a failure because it only gives the patient and his doctors and therapists a barometer on that needs remedy or attention later on,” Villaroman explained. “If you look at addiction as a chronic relapsing disorder, you expect patients to stumble and fall for the duration of the program,” he added. But the DOH TRH Center officials said that the government is doing its best to treat and rehabilitate illegal drug dependents with services at par with the private–run ones.
Aside from giving well–to–do and indigent patients alike with professional help for their social, mental, psychological and physical treatment, the DOH TRH Center also provides spiritual nourishment by letting patients exercise their faith through organized meetings of Christians, Catholics, Muslims, and Protestants held inside the compound. This is aside from the mandatory spiritual retreat that patients should undergo before “graduating” from the program. “Spiritual nourishment is important in the rehabilitation process because patients got addicted to either illegal drugs or alcohol when they become estranged from their spirituality,” Diokno said.
But the readiness of the patient’s family to accept and care for him again in their homes is also vital in the discharging of the patient from the Center. Diokno said that resolution of family problems, that proved to be the root cause of the patient’s deviation, is as important as the patient’s readiness to reintegrate to his family, community and the society as a whole. Kris Bayos
