KARACHI – Pakistan’s first women drugs addict rehabilitation and treatment centre has been shelved due to financial burden, The Nation has learnt on Sunday.

The women centre is being run under the supervision of New Horizon Care Centre which provides free of cost treatment to drug addicts for the last one decade in the City.

The Coordinator of New Horizon Naveed Younis told The Nation that there was urgent need for establishing the treatment and rehabilitation centre for drug addict women as several families of addicted women had contacted us for their treatment. Due to high inflation, it is very difficult for the New Horizon Care Centre (Male) to offer this treatment to women.

He, however, maintained that counselling and treatment facility would be provided to the women drug-addicts at their residence, but they would not be facilitated at the centre because of the paucity of the funds.

He said that the women centre worked for more than one year and it provided free treatment and rehabilitation with the facility of meal and medicines to the female addicts. But now his organisation cannot bear the expenditures of the rent of the place, rehabilitation of the women patients, it has been closed, he said.

He regretted that despite hectic efforts, neither city government nor provincial and federal government come forward to help to run the centre, while every body knows that his organisation is working diehard from one decade provided free treatment with rehabilitation to the drug addicts.

“We were striving to get a place either a plot or building for establishing the centre and contacted many times to the high ups of CDGK, Sindh Govt and Federal Govt and they came here to see all the process of the treatment and facilities which are provided to the male and female patients,” he added.

He further said that the drugs rehabilitation centre for male is also on rent and there is no secret that daily increase in the number of patients.

The head of the women centre Ms Farheen Siddiqui told the Nation that around 100 women patients had been treated in the centre.

The organisation was not ready to close the Pakistan’s first women drug treatment centre, but the current wave of inflation compelled us to shut the women centre,” she added.

She mentioned that the details of the patients are kept secret when they contact for getting treatment at their own residence and such patients will be rehabilitated with the involvement of their family members.
Source: The Nation
Date:1/5/2009