The Sunday News
Sunday News Reporters
A serious drug menace has engulfed the country with reports that a 96-bed capacity ward at Ingustheni Central Hospital in Bulawayo is at any time filled above capacity with mostly youths exhibiting psychotic or violent behaviour.
That behaviour is mainly attributed to drug abuse, experts have said. The revelation comes at a time when studies have shown that more than 60 percent of admissions into the country’s mental health institutions are from substance abuse with 80 percent of those admissions in the 16 and 40 age group.
Drug abuse in Zimbabwe has become rampant raising even the discomfort of Government which has expressed concern during Cabinet meetings on the issue. Ingutsheni clinical director Dr Wellington Ranga told Sunday News that the hospital’s admission wing, Khumalo Ward which was built to handle 96 patients was now accommodating slightly more due to increased demand for the hospital’s services by young drug addicts.
He said although the hospital does not admit patients specifically to receive drug rehabilitation or to be treated for drug addiction, most of the patients being admitted were addicted to drugs or alcohol or both.
Dr Ranga said when new patients are admitted to the hospital, medical personnel immediately work towards stabilising them to rid them of psychotic or violent behaviour. He said only after treatment starts , that the hospital gets to find out if a patient is an addict and what sort of an addict they are.
“We don’t really have a ward dedicated to drug rehabilitation. What we have is a general admissions ward which houses at least 96 patients at any given time. It is in this ward that we begin the initial treatment process and during this phase, we eventually find out if a patient is an addict or not.
“But understand that while we treat addicts at Ingutsheni, we do not do so as a specific drug rehabilitation programme. In general, most of our drug or alcohol addicts sort of go off drugs or alcohol merely because while they are in our custody, they have no access to these and not because we have a specialist drug rehab programme,” said Dr Ranga.
He said while it may seem like patients are receiving drug rehabilitation, the hospital currently helps patients’ drug or alcohol issues only as part of a larger treatment plan to cure them of their psychosis.
“In Zimbabwe the best we do for drug addicts admitted with us is the lack of the substances they are addicted to. And in general, these addicts do not suffer withdrawal symptoms as do those we see on TV, so we don’t have to use drugs to treat them. In fact, at Ingutsheni we don’t treat drug addiction but psychosis and if this psychosis is drug induced, the failure to access drugs by our patients becomes a sort of treatment,” he said.
Research done by the Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network revealed that Zimbabwe has no public rehabilitation centre for drug and alcohol abusers, a situation that is forcing many patients fail to get the much-needed help and many relapsing into the abuse of the harmful substances.
The organisation seeks to educate the public on drug policy reforms, introduction of harm reduction in the country and also prevention of HIV and Aids especially on people who use drugs. Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network executive director Mr Wilson Box said the situation was dire.
“Research done also reveals that 91 percent of school going pupils have used drugs before,” said Mr Box.
In Zimbabwe the commonly used drugs include but are not limited to marijuana, codeine-based substances, crystal methamphetamine, illicit brews, cocaine, heroin, domestic substances, glue, ecstasy, prescription drugs and histalix.
However, due to the unavailability of rehabilitation centres, patients are only admitted to psychiatric units.
“Two weeks ago, I was at Ingutsheni Central Hospital and the ward that should house 95 patients, it had 165 on that day meaning that was almost double the figure and 90 percent of those patients were suffering from substance abuse.
We are lobbying that a population size estimate be done countrywide. A few partners have come on board but are only going to do that in five selected provinces.
“People who use drugs, when confronted go underground and do not come out to seek help, so we are saying the Dangerous Drugs Act (Chapter15) and the Criminal Law Codification Act Section 157 Chapter 9:23 of Zimbabwe needs to be updated so that it views the issue of illicit drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue because once we put criminalisation where drug use is, then the participants actually go underground. But those that are supplying should actually go to jail,” said Mr Box.
He also said drug users were more at risk of getting infected by HIV than the general population.
In Kwekwe, the Kwekwe Child Protection Unit (CPU) last week raised a red flag over a surge in cases of drug abuse, bullying, sex orgies and gang violence that have become rampant within schools in the district.
During an emergency CPU meeting on Thursday, authorities raised concern over cases which were being reported within schools but no action was being taken to address the issues.
Acting CPU chair who is also acting District Development Coordinator (DDC), Mr Reason Machina said the meeting had to be convened hurriedly after an anonymous student at Manunure High School wrote a message to the DDC office seeking immediate intervention over increased cases of substance abuse, bullying and violence at the school.
“We received a message from one student who is disgruntled and the student is claiming that the environment at the school is no longer conducive for learning. The student also claims that there is a group of students that is involved in drug and alcohol abuse and when they get drunk, they become violent and beat up other students as well as sexually abusing girls amongst other things,” said Mr Machina.
The drunk pupils are also said to be involved in sexual activities either within school premises or outside.
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr John Mangwiro said Government was seized with the matter and all central hospitals have been instructed to create room for these patients.
He said the problem of drug abuse was a relatively new problem which is affecting future generations as school children are also using them.
(Story by Robin Muchetu, Simba Jemwa and Michael Magoronga)
