As part of the country’s fight against illegal drugs, the Department of Health has announced the construction of four rehabilitation facilities in Mindanao.
The rehabilitation centers which will be located in communities in Calinan, Davao City, Malaybalay, Bukidnon, Agusan del Norte and Sarangani Province have the capacity of up to 250-300 beds each.
The budget to be used for the building of the rehab centers were donations coming from private and public sectors. The rehab center in Calinan will be funded by Resorts World Manila, the one in Malaybalay from Chinese Friends of the Philippines Foundation and for the Agusan del Norte and Sarangani Province, both from the Chinese Government. DOH will be providing for the human resource, maintenance and operations aspect of the said centers.
Building of the rehab centers will strengthen the community-based rehabilitation program that the DOH is implementing.
“We need to strengthen the community-based rehabilitation program. What’s important especially for our drug surrenderees, may pinagkakaabalahan sila, may mag monitor para hindi sila maka access sa drugs,” DOH Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said in a conference held at Royal Mandaya Hotel on Tuesday.
A P 3-billion budget is allocated on drug rehabilitation for the year 2017, five times bigger than the budget in 2016 which is only 600 million.
The rehabilitation centers are expected to be realized in November or December of this year.
