Drug users treated in Psychiatry, Kosova Sakka institute for handling addiction

In the context of the Psychiatric Clinic, there is a special department that is treating people with addiction diseases. This clinic has four more departments, but the one where these cases are handled has smaller capacities.

Psychiatric Clinic Director Faton Kutlovci for KosovaPress shows there is an increase in the number of cases of drug users seeking treatment.

There are only six beds within the ward for addiction diseases. If we consider increased needs, especially in recent years, I'm talking about the last year because if you're interested in a trend in the number of those who have sought help in our clinic, then the largest number has been during 2019, then it has marked a decline during the 2020-2021 pandemic years and it has now marked growth during 2022. And so far we have all 812 days of treatment, 60 admissions, and that brings us trouble. Because we only have six beds, huge demands”, he relates.

The large number of requests for compulsory treatment come from courts. Acceptable persons stay up to ten days for detoxification.

We're often forced to treat these patients in other departments, for example, in Sector A, where we treat people with mental disorders or psychosis, because even patients who abuse psychoactive substances, along with other complaints, we don't have a larger institution. Better yet, Kosovo needs institutes to treat addiction diseases, because needs are on the rise”, Kutlovci adds.

He adds that building the Institute for Treatment of Varieties should be a national strategy.

The need to build this institute, Safet Blakaj, who is director of the Psychiatric Special Centre “, considers it necessary. Labyrinth” in Pristina.

“We think that it is definitely necessary to have an institution outside the facility of the Psychiatric Clinic where drug users would receive their services more specific. I wouldn't say it would be for a large number of patients, but anyway, to be the reference center for treating drug users, but also for conveying the state of drug use situations in Kosovo”, Blakaj says.

The centre does not offer 24-hour service, but medical services, psychiatric visits and psycho-social support. This year's first six months have registered increased drug users.

During this year's service to us, the number is 212 users. There's also a category here, where there's a continuous methadon program and others that have sought other services related to their addiction problem... There's an increase in the number of drug users, but there's a difference in drugs. Previously, in 2014 it was the main heroin drug, from 2017, and especially in 2019 and extremely in this year, we have a rapid increase in the number of cocaine users. Of course, marijuana is the drug most used on the corner of Kosovo”, Blakaj shows.

Red Gashi, of the National Torture Prevention Mechanism in the Ombudsman Institute, says that during monitoring visits, 50 percent of the cases handled in the Psychiatrics are users of narcotics.

The “is actually not their place to be treated at the Institute of Forenzic Psychiatry, there's almost always a lack of capacity in this institution. Because in the Psychiatry Department, only one special department for treating these people up to two weeks for detoxification. However, we do not have special institutions for treating people who are users of narcotics in Kosovo. This is missing Kosovo, I really hope that even in the Law on Mental Health, this point will be determined and addressed by this sensitive category”, Gashi claims.

Under the new mental - health law, there is also the establishment of an Institute for Treatment of Varieties. The working group for drafting the concept of the mental - health document has already been formed.