|
|
Mauritius: Out of Touch
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
L'Express (Port Louis)
COLUMN
3 July 2008
Posted to the web 3 July 2008
Nicholas Rainer
Port Louis
If the Guinness Book of Records ever decided to reward a bumbling act of brute stupidity, the Voice of Hindu's (VOH) illegal raid of Candos Hospital would surely be a shoe-in for the accolade. It is often said that idle hands do the devil's work. I thus suggest that members of this outfit get a job, or a life, or both. This might give them a more constructive way of occupying their Friday mornings.
Unsurprisingly, they are not the only "patriots" currently establishing their notoriety in the less than honourable categories. The Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition could share the top spot in the spinelessness stakes for their abject failure to condemn the lunacy.
Navin Ramgoolam and Paul Bérenger united at last under the banner of the Poultry Alliance!
Seriously though, VOH's attempt to disrupt the Methadone Substitution Therapy (MST) Programme offers an indication of just how out of touch it is with the real challenges facing the country. HIV/AIDS is spreading like wildfire on the back of the brown sugar addiction of thousands of our countrymen. MST is a way of weaning injecting drug users off the horrid drug. By the same token, the treatment keeps them away from the dirty syringes that spread disease.
According to the country's progress report to the Declaration of Commitment of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, "The aim of the Methadone Substitution Therapy in Mauritius is to primarily treat drug abusers through an oral form of opiate (methadone) and prevent the transmission of HIV infection. Mauritius launched its MST programme in an 'emergency' response fashion thus adopting a programme that suits its specific environmental context".
The MST programme, which was started in 2006, has already been identified as best practice by the Southern African Development Community (SADC). As part of the demand reduction strategy it has shown "conclusive results". The only programme's only shortcoming is that it lacks sufficient funds to have a significant impact on the problem.
"To date there are 400 male clients on Methadone with 24 drop-outs. It is costly and difficult to target the entire IDU population and the need to scale up is of utmost importance because with the actual rate of enrolling clients, it might take too long to achieve any improvement, thus defeating the purpose of detoxification", states the progress report.
And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. The chaos unleashed in the wake of the US invasion of Afghanistan has created a security vacuum in which the production of heroin has bloomed. The world is awash in the stuff. Some could argue that the US government should foot part of the MST bill, but that's another story.
|
As for the VOH, if the self-styled militia really wants to do something useful it could take on the drug dealers and other gangsters that operate all over the island, instead of bullying hospital staff and a few junkies. Now that would be brave!
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 L'Express. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
