CCOO has denounced that the Canary Islands Health Service will close "shortly" the Hospital Treatment Detoxification Unit of the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital, which is integrated in the Network of Centers for the Care of Drug Addicts that was created in 1992. According to the general secretary of CCOO in the Health area of Lanzarote, Nicolás Cabrera, this is not the first time that an attempt has been made to close this unit, but this time it seems that it will be "the definitive one".
The Hospital Treatment Detoxification Unit of the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital has provided coverage to patients from this island and Fuerteventura. It is one of the four units that are distributed throughout the Canary Islands. The other three are located in the Doctor Negrin University Hospital (Gran Canaria), the Canary Islands University Hospital (Tenerife) and the Psychiatric Hospital of Tenerife.
The UHTD of Lanzarote has four beds, a multidisciplinary team of five nurses, a doctor and an occupational therapist. "In the past, it has been the envy of good professional work, always being in the spotlight of the rest of the islands", CCOO has stated through a statement, in which it has assured that with the possible disappearance of the unit "the door is closed to those people who are trying to escape the horror of drugs".
The union has recalled that the Internment Unit played an "important role in weaning the patient off drug addiction in order to continue their therapeutic process". This includes a visit to the Zonzamas Day Center, where the user receives bio-psycho-social orientation therapy, as well as training workshops and personal, family and social re-education therapy. According to CCOO, this center also hosts training courses for the unemployed, as it collaborates with the Canary Islands Employment Service.
These patients also have the Zonzamas Therapeutic Community in Lanzarote, a service aimed at weaning people with drug addiction problems. The union has pointed out that in order to gain access to this device it is "essential to be referred from a Drug Addiction Care Unit", attached to the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, as well as having previously completed the detoxification period.
"It won't be the same anymore"
"Undoubtedly, the drug addiction care network in Lanzarote, financed by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Island Council of Lanzarote, has a complete therapeutic circuit made up of a wide variety of centers and programs, where NGOs "Calor y Café" and "Afacoda", among others, have made it possible to offer, to date, comprehensive care to drug addicts and their families", CCOO has indicated.
However, according to the union, this panorama will change from this Monday since all people who consume narcotic substances "will not be able to join the Therapeutic Network of Lanzarote, given that they probably will not meet an essential requirement such as not consuming any type of toxic substance in a reasonable time". "The success in the provision of these treatments, which this unit gave for years, will ruin this first phase of the therapeutic program", they have denounced.
Queen Sofia Award
And it is that for the union "a door is closed, which has always been open in Lanzarote for those most in need". In this same sense, CCOO has recalled that this unit was awarded the Queen Sofia Award against Drugs in 2007. "We are sure that Her Majesty Queen Doña Sofía will not like at all to know through the media how one of the Therapeutic Communities with the greatest recognition in the entire Spanish territory is crumbling, due to the senselessness of the politician on duty, who is completely unaware of the suffering of so many families scourged by this scourge on our island of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura", he has criticized.
CCOO considers "a hypocrisy" that this center is going to be closed. "Now a dark horizon is presented where NGOs will have to be used even more thoroughly, because disillusionment will invade the hearts of many who will have no alternative to get out of drugs", the union has lamented.
