To implement a holistic recovery and rehabilitation program for drug dependents in the city, the local government of Muntinlupa has conducted a training workshop for its doctors, medical personnel, and social workers.
Muntinlupa City Health Office acting chief Dr. Juancho Bunyi said the local health office, in cooperation with the Local Council for the Protection of Children, launched a four-day training initially attended by 12 doctors, six nurses, two midwife practitioners, four social workers, and two members of the Muntinlupa Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Office.
Bunyi said the four-day training workshop equipped the participants with a DOH provisional accreditation to perform assessment, screening, and referral of treatment of drug dependents who will surrender to local authorities.
Trained doctors will be authorized to recommend the type of treatment that the drug dependents need to undergo such as in-house treatment, referral to rehabilitation facilities, or through a local community-based program.
He added that Muntinlupa City is the first LGU to organize the basic course for accreditation of medical personnel in NCR.
“The accreditation of medical personnel is one of the various strategies that we are implementing to improve the local anti-illegal drugs campaign. It is our goal that drug dependents who will surrender to the government will eventually be fully integrated back to society,” Bunyi noted.
Muntinlupa City Government forefronts in giving alternative programs for the rehabilitation of drug-dependent surrenderers through MAPALAD, a local recovery approach for drug-users.
Beyond medical and psychiatric interventions, the local government provides scholarships and loans to hundreds of drug dependents who surrendered to local authorities. Screened surrenderers will be receiving assistance such as enrollment in technical-vocational institution and zero-interest loan financing for business.
Recently, the local government also entered a partnership with DOH Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers (DOH-TRC) to fund rehabilitation of drug users and pushers surrenderers.
Muntinlupa Mayor Jaime Fresnedi, DOH-TRC Bicutan director Dr. Marvin Diokno, and DOH-TRC Tagaytay representative Jocelyn Belencion inked a memorandum of agreement on June for policies in the acceptance of indigent drug dependents in the rehabilitation facilities.
The subsidy amounting to 10 million pesos will benefit indigent drug dependents who are financially challenged to undergo the program.
Fresnedi has expressed support to the President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs and pushes for recovery and rehabilitation programs of surrenderers.