LAHORE: The Punjab Healthcare Commission has stopped five drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation centres from functioning and completed comprehensive reports for further action.

A spokesperson said on Monday the PHC teams carried out inspections of 17 treatment and rehabilitation healthcare establishments in different parts of the city and stopped Focus on Life Clinic (Bund Road), Silver Lining Rehabilitation Centre, Addiction Recovery Centre (Allama Iqbal Town), Shaaf Clinic (Kumahaan Road) and Rah-e-Najat Clinic (Canal Bank Society) from functioning.

These establishments had neither appointed any psychiatrist and doctor nor trained or educated staff. And if there were any appointments, the persons were either visiting or on-call.

Moreover, Umeed Hospital (Rehmanpura) and Emaan Clinic (Johar Town) were stopped from taking new admissions since these had already accommodated maximum number of patients.

The spokesperson said last week the PHC had carried out a well-coordinated and successful operation along with the district administration, police and District Health Authority to rescue 281 drug addicts from a private centre - Aamir Chishti Hospital.

“The so-called drug treatment and rehabilitation centre was sealed since there were neither treatment facilities nor any qualified staff was appointed,” said the spokesperson while adding that the PHC was not allowing healthcare establishments to function which were not implementing the minimum service delivery standards (MSDS) and had not obtained licence from it.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2018