Women's ward at the Amal Hospital, a drug addiction treatment center, was shut down after over two years of operation due to limited number of women addicts at the ward, said Sami Badawood, Director of Jeddah Health Affairs Management; a decision that sparked a reaction from a human rights body. The admission applications to the women's ward were very limited, he said. There are about 30,000 drug addicts in the Kingdom. Saudi society views drug addiction as a big cultural taboo and tends to keep low profile on addiction cases and private treatment, especially among women. Only five cases were received for treatment at the women's ward, he said. “It was not encouraging to continue the treatment program at the Amal Hospital,” he said. The Ministry of Health, however, had earlier advised the Jeddah Health Department to hold on the decision to open a new women's ward for drug addicts drawing on similar experiences of limited cases admitted into the all-female treatment centers in Riyadh and Dammam, he said. Rehabilitation program of addicts at the Amal Hospital, which was supported by the Centennial Fund and the Saudi Credit and Savings Bank, the Jeddah Mayoralty, and the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, was temporarily shut down due to the closure of the women's ward. Amal Hospital, on an average, treats 120 to 170 drug addicts between the ages of 18 and 40 on a daily basis. Of late, there has been a 300 percent increase in treatment requests at the hospital. The rehabilitation program, which used to provide addicts with the best chance of a new life after treatment, will be reactivated soon, however, Badawood said. The health care team members who left the women's ward were deployed in other government hospitals in Jeddah. The five cases of women addicts will be referred to the mental hospital in Jeddah, Badawood said. But good health care is a human rights issue, said a human rights body in the Kingdom. “We will always ask for setting up specialized health care centers to treat women addicts,” said Hussein Al-Shareef, director of National Human Rights Association (NHRS). “Addicts, regardless of their sex, need a focused treatment and rehabilitation program, which do not exist here yet,” he said. The Ministry of Health had earlier opened a treatment clinic for women addicts at King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, but it was closed down after treating over 30 cases. The mental hospital in Jeddah received 133 cases of women addicts from 2006-08. Over the past two years, the Amal Hospital received 106 cases, and the number is growing as informed sources said, despite the recent closure.
