Centre’s innovative addiction treatment
DOCTOR Prakash Naidoo gives heroin addicts a drug that prevents the heroin from working.
Naltima is the drug which is part of the unconventional treatment that is available at the Assisted Recovery Centres of Africa in Rivonia.
Naidoo said, “Even when addicts use heroin while on Naltima, it will bounce off.”
He explained, “We have made the process of withdrawal as pain-free as possible with our treatment, which we doctors should be doing for any disease. What is done in this country, instead, is using addictive methods to treat drug addiction. Yes, it takes away the craving for that moment but it leaves the patient with the craving for the treatment.”
Naidoo said the difference with Naltima is that it is a non-addictive drug and it cannot be abused.
He added, “There are many, many rehab centres in South Africa but there are different models of treatment which we should embrace.”
The centre has devised a method to compress 14 days of drug detox into three days.
Naidoo said he has found that the lengthy and painful process of the ‘cold turkey’ detox is what keeps people away from recovery. “This is what we do not want; we want people to welcome treatment,” he said.
“People go to rehab centres for six months out of a year and the day that they come out they are already back on it (the drugs) because what is done is that the addiction is only put on hold,” said Naidoo.
He wants government to get involved in his centre’s quick and effective means of treatment for addiction. “Drug abuse is a nationwide problem and we are saying that the model is there, it’s affordable and we want the government on board,” he added.
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