Alcoholism is a disease that plagues society nowadays. The Clodomira Acosta psychiatric hospital in this province has prepared a program of support, medical attention, and awareness raising for these people.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Ismaray Pupo Grijalvo, a first-degree specialist in adult psychiatry and head of the Addictions Service of this institution explains to 26 that "We currently have a ward for the care of this type of pathology. Strategies have been drawn up to admit the patients and, due to infrastructure issues, they live together with other psychiatric patients, but this does not interfere with their rehabilitation."
At present, there are 10 patients hospitalized with alcohol dependency, who came to the center through the on-call staff in search of help, "this is one of the main criteria for admission: the patient's desire to stop consuming and the willingness to be admitted. This is essential for the psychotherapy to be effective, i.e., it is not the family member who is going to force his or her hospitalization to detoxify and get better."
The specialist explains that patients usually arrive in a state of abstinence with the typical symptoms: tremors, sweating, and sometimes alcoholic hallucinations, they may be hearing voices or seeing things that do not exist.
"When they come in that condition, they are hospitalized for 30 days. We have a very well-standardized protocol. Initially, we start with the treatment of injections for three days depending on the clinic. And from then on we follow their signs. Later we include oral treatment if there are depressive symptoms, anxiety and the evolution itself shows us the changes or stability."
The Alcoholics Anonymous group plays a fundamental role in this work. Hortensia Dolores Pérez Saldívar, a graduate in Social and Occupational Rehabilitation, and the main specialist in the Alcohol and Drugs ward, talks about the strength of having their support.
"They come here on Wednesdays at 11:00 a.m. to work with the patients we have in the ward. They immediately encourage exchanges, and when they leave, they join the alcoholic groups to continue their rehabilitation."
"They work with a lot of passion, I have seen that. This integrated work is very effective, it has been scientifically proven and today it is a premise that these are the only ones that help the patients to remain abstinent."
Rehabilitation activities in the ward, as well as group visits to those undergoing psychotherapy, are some of the actions that are carried out. "We also have a very comprehensive basic work team made up of the social worker, psychologist, rehabilitators, psychiatrists and we manage to make the consultation more comprehensive in terms of symptomatology, and with the issue of occupational therapy," says Dr. Pupo Grijalvo.
"Group psychotherapies do work. If there is a patient with a type of personality disorder or specific situation, he or she is given individual psychotherapy, and after 30 days of admission, he or she leaves recovered, asymptomatic, with new life projections. The current times have brought more patients to be admitted and the results can be seen, because later you find them on the street, already reincorporated into society."
The support of the family is essential in this stage of life, where health care, love, and personal effort are the premises for those who enter this detoxification process.
