VUSTA gave observances to draft Decree on determination of drug addiction status

On July 29th 2021, the VUSTA’s Board of Management of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Project - The Global Fund cooperated with the Administration for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, Ministry of Health to organize an online workshop discussing about the Draft Decree on medical facilities which are eligible to determine drug addiction status; dossier, order and procedures of determining drug addiction status.

Attendants at the workshop were representatives of the VUSTA’s Board of Management of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Project - The Global Fund; the Administration for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, Ministry of Health; representatives of the units subject to the project including the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS); Center for supporting community development initiatives (SCDI); Quality of Life Improvement Center (Life Center); the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Network of drug users and representatives of many community groups who work with drug users in Vietnam.

Dr. Nguyen Hoang Long, Head of the Administration for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, and, Mr. Pham Quang Thao, Vice President of VUSTA, Director of the VUSTA’s Board of Management of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Project - The Global Fund also took part in and chaired the workshop.

In giving opening speech for the workshop, Mr. Pham Quang Thao emphasized that VUSTA had been assigned the task of social evaluation and consultancy by the Government, VUSTA was entitled to deploy the HIV/AIDS prevention and control project with the main target of mobilizing community groups to participate in HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities. Intervention subjects of the project are those affected by the Decree. Therefore, contents and outcomes of the workshop are relevant to the tasks of the project and they will contribute practical comments to help the Government to develop and issue a highly-practical Decree.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Tam, Head of the HIV Prevention and Control Division, Administration for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control presented the Draft Decree on medical facilities which are eligible to determine drug addiction status; dossier, order and procedures of determining drug addiction status. The Draft Decree consists of 3 Chapters, 11 articles, mainly mentions to professional issues of regulations of medical facilities which are eligible to determine drug addiction status; dossier, order and procedures of determining drug addiction status.

The photo of the participants in the online workshop

Speaking at the online workshop, participants said that the Draft Decree provided quite full contents regarding regulations on medical facilities which are eligible to determine drug addiction status; dossier, order and procedures of determining drug addiction status.

However, they also said that the Drafting Committee needed to research and amend some points, for example, it is necessary to provide free services for the people who voluntarily come to determine the drug status as when they wanted to know about their real addiction status, and they wished to end the addiction by using detoxification, they should have opportunity to approach to free services.

Also, at the online workshop, some participants expressed their concerns if the detention facility was qualified to carry out the determination of addiction status, this might not be objective. In addition, whether the professional capacities of these facilities could identify or diagnose accurately drug addiction status or not, it is not easy to determine addiction status if the drug users consume synthetic drugs. Besides, conflicts of interest should also be controlled.

Moreover, some people commented that the information in the voluntary questionnaire to determine addiction status should be as simple as possible, and unnecessary information should be removed because drug users are also too shy to disclose much personal information.

In concluding the workshop, Dr. Nguyen Hoang Long expressed his sincere thanks to the participants who provided a lot of valuable comments, he said that those comments were very important because most of them were provided by the ones working directly with the beneficiaries of the Decree. He said that in order to complete Decree in a convenient manner, the Organizing Committee was expected to send the official comments of the participants in the workshop to the Administration for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control. The Drafting Board would study and consider the comments sent from Ministries, sectors, provinces, cities and other agencies to complete the Decree and thereby ensure its quality and feasibility before submitting the Decree to the Government for approval.

News & photo: VUSTA’s Board of Management of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Project