Africa-Press – Namibia. THE health directorate in Erongo says the Mount Sinai Recovery Centre at Usakos has been ordered to close its doors due to reports of patient abuse.
The centre is a faith-based rehabilitaion centre dealing with substance abuse issues, according to its website.
The centre was previously shut down almost two years ago due to reports of unspecified abuse, but is now operating again.
Erongo health director Anna Jonas says the centre should not be treating patients who require drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment.
“We have closed it down as a ministry, so if they are still open it’s illegal.
“There were complaints before and we closed it down and the owner was informed,” she says of the complaints of abuse of patients received in 2021.
She says it can only be legal if the centre has been registered under a different name and for a different purpose other than a treatment centre for drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
Any complaints should be reported to the authorities but as far as the ministry is aware, the centre has been closed for over a year, she says. Owner of the centre Arno Engels said that the allegations against the centre are not true.
“We have an open door policy, where you can come and look for yourself. We treat our clients as patients that are experiencing a lot.”
He says patients in drug recovery go through a lot, and caretakers are required to have certain skills to work with them.
“One thing you have to keep in mind is that this person is recovering from substance abuse and they need professionals that know how to work with them,” he says.
An anonymous source told The Namibian he took his brother-in-law to the centre at the beginning of the year, and last week when he went to visit him he saw how badly patients were being treated.
“When I got there, I saw a man chained to a tree in the sun because he is in drug addiction recovery,” he says.
The source claims patients are also being shouted at by nurses and are not well cared for, he says.
He removed his brother-in-law from the centre after witnessing how he was treated, he says.
“People pay so much money for their loved ones to get taken care of and instead this place treats them like nobodies, as if they are a burden to the centre.”
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