1,000 Mandaue surrenderers set to take next step of Health Department’s free rehab program
At least a thousand drug surrenderers from the 27 barangays in Mandaue City will undergo the second phase of the region’s health department’s community-based drug rehabilitation program in Central Visayas.
Chief Insp. Mercy Villaro, Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) spokesperson, said Mandaue City had been chosen as the pilot city for the Department of Health’s drug rehabilitation program, which started its first phase in January this year.
“I believe Mandaue has been chosen because it is not a difficult city to manage and the local government is very responsive to drug rehab efforts such as this,” Villaro said.
She said that the program is a three-phase program.
The first phase is the assessment phase called “Assist-BI” or the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test-Brief Intervention. This profiling and interview phase is designed to screen a surrenderer’s problem or risky use of psychoactive substance and assist one to the fitting treatment one requires depending on his needs. This is a two-month process and the user will be categorized low, moderate and high risk.
Surrenderers, who will be categorized under low to moderate will immediately go through the rehab program while those who will be classified as a high risk user will have to be admitted to an in-patient rehabilitation center.
The second phase, the third to fifth month of the program would be spiritual counseling and Bible sharing sessions.
The third phase, fifth to the twelfth month of the program, will be the skills and livelihood training where the drug surrenderers will be taught special livelihood skills as they prepare to be reintegrated to the community.
Villaro said that they are partnering with the Technical skills and Development Authority (Tesda) and Public Employment and Services Office (Peso) in realizing the third and last phase.
She said that MCPO will also continue to receive drug surrenderers and usher them to the rehab program as long as they are willing to submit themselves to the process.
“We will also continue to monitor them and conduct random drug tests from time to time to check whether they have completely turned away from illegal drug use,” Villaro told Cebu Daily News.
DOH-7 will provide the modules and the drug testing kits to be used throughout the program while the Mandaue City government will shoulder the expenses in feeding the counselors and the drug surrenderers.
She said that as of Jan. 19, this year, the drug surrenderers in Mandaue are 5,035.
Of this number, only a thousand availed of the free drug rehabilitation program.
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