The state government is currently running OOAT treatment on pilot basis in three districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Moga. (In picture: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh)
The Punjab government has decided to extend Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) programme to remaining 19 districts of the state, the State’s Health Minister said on Saturday. The OOAT programme is the Congress government’s biggest health plan against drug addiction and was started in October last year.
The state government is currently running OOAT treatment on pilot basis in three districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Moga. Under OOAT, Buprenorphine, an opioid, is combined with another drug called Naloxone and provided to addicts on Out-Patient Department(OPD) basis to treat opioid addiction.
“The response of the pilot project is good. We will extend the programme to all 22 districts very soon,” state’s Health Minister Brahm Mohindra told The Indian Express. He said staff for this project had been trained by the health department.
In te first three districts, 25 centres have been opened at various health facilities, including at rehabilitation centres, and at Community Health Centre (CHC) level. The OOAT model was suggested by a American drug therapist and consultant Dr Kanwar Ajit Singh Sidhu to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Dr Ranbir Singh Rana, in-charge of the government’s Tarn Taran facility and one of the doctors actively involved in the project, said, “In the remaining 19 districts, OOAT centres will be opened in rehabilitation centres, and Sub Divisional Hospitals (SDH). We are also planning to start the programme in eight central jails across the state.”
He also said that more than 3,500 patients had been registered in the three districts covered by the pilot project and retention rate of the patients was 70 to 80 per cent. “We are getting good response for this project,” he said.