Chandigarh: Over 60,000 new drug-addicts in Punjab have registered themselves with the de-addiction programme in the past one month since the lockdown was imposed, said Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Saturday.
The opening time of out-patient opioid assisted treatment (OOAT) clinics has been set at 8am in view of the rising number of drug-addicts, the minister said.
Special attention is being paid to the drug de-addiction programme on the directives of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Sidhu said, while urging social workers and people to follow instructions of the government at this critical time and reach out to hospitals only when needed.
According to health ministry figures, 4.14 lakh addicts were registered with it. These included 1.55 lakh at OOAT centres, 2.15 lakh in de-addiction centres and more than 30,000 in rehabilitation centres before the lockdown.
Now the figure is 4.74 lakh, an increase of 60,000 patients at the OOAT clinics. Officials said in majority of cases, social stigma of getting identified kept them away for so long.
The new registered members are given an ID with which they can receive medicines that would help them in the de-addiction process. While the medicines costs anywhere between Rs 1,000 to 1,500 per strip, the health department is giving them away for free.
Ludhiana which sees a majority of the cases (73,655 in three years till 22 March), registered 5,623 cases in the last one month. In Moga, there were 32,432 cases registered over last three years. The last month saw 5,927 cases being reported.
Similar is the case with Amritsar (26,200 till March 22, and 1,629 since then), Barnala (14,812 and 3,138 cases, respectively), Bathinda (13,927 and 4,744), and Ferozepur (11,884 and 2,532 cases).
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