CHENNAI: The department of social defence will set up two more deaddiction centres for children, particularly those in conflict with law, in Namakkal and Madurai, officials said. The facilities each will be able to admit 30 children at a time.
Now, the state has only one paediatric deaddiction centre in Chengalpet district that can admit 15 children. The centre is run by the NGO Lifeline Centre for Prevention of Children from Alcoholism and Substance (Drug) Abuse. “Since therapy can sometimes go on for weeks, several children are put on wait list. We try to follow up on children over phone and video calls, but we are mostly tied up with new children admitted. Many of them are in conflict with law,” said NGO founder Chezhian Ramu
The new centres will help rehabilitate more children. “Our admission capacity will increase to 45. We will soon have more centres in other districts as well,” said a senior official from the department of social defence. These two centres were scheduled to be opened in March but were delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic, he added.
In the private sector, Chennai-based Voluntary Health Services (VHS) admits children between 12-18 years addicted to marijuana, alcohol, inhalants, and chewable tobacco. In the past decade, the hospital has seen a huge increase in patients addicted to flavoured tobacco. Statistics released by the Chennai Metropolitan Tumour Registry attached to Cancer Institute in Adyar show incidence of mouth cancer which was 0.6 per 1,00,000 males in the age group of 15-34 thirty years ago, went up to 2.3 in 2013. The incidence now is expected to have touched 2.5. Although numerically small, epidemiologists find it scary because it’s a four-fold increase in three decades.
“To stop this, we have to pick children early. Many centres do not admit children because they lack specialised professionals to deal with them. We need better infrastructure and human resources to deal with such problems. There are very few child-focused mental health professionals in the state,” said senior psychiatrist Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar.