30 Aug 2016

Professionals responsible for substance and drug addiction completed a 10-day universal treatment curriculum course in Gaborone.

The course was organised and funded by International Narcotics and Law Enforcement affairs (INL), US department of state and was facilitated by Colombo plan international centre for Education (ICCE).

Officiating during the trainee's graduation recently,  Assistant Minister of Health, Dr Alfred Madigele, said upon completing the short course, the trainees should  replicate what they had learnt.

He said doing so was a mandatory requirement for the next training scheduled for November 2016.

He said they should consider the two months grace period sufficient and advised the trainees for immediate implementation.

Minister Madigele explained that the training marked the first step in the journey of creating a cadre of credentialed addictions professionals in Botswana.

Therefore he said the skills and knowledge obtained from the course will form a bedrock on which they will build a profession of addictions treatment.

One of the participants, Sabrana Psychiatric hospital superintendent Dr Mpho Thula said they were enlightened on the magnitude of the drug abuse.

He said they became aware that drug abuse had turned to be global disease, therefore he said what they had learnt from the training positioned them to deal with addictions in a better way.

“One of the striking things was that we should approach substance abuse as a disease and to treat it as such,” explained Dr Thula. ENDS