KUCHING: Sarawak recorded the lowest percentage of recidivism or drug addiction relapse in Malaysia at 0.88 percent, and an incarceration rate of 95 prisoners per 100,000 of the population, according to 2022 statistics from the Malaysia Prisons Department.
Minister of Women, Early Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said that with a wider access to treatment and recovery care in the community, the ratio of help-seeking among groups affected by substance use has improved from 1:10 in 2018 to 1:6 in July 2022.
“This is a remarkable achievement for the OSCs to celebrate as this ratio is better than the international average reported by the United Nation Office for Drug and Crime (UNODC),” she said in her speech during the Phoenix Gala Award Dinner in conjunction with the International Recovery Symposium (IRS) 2023 at Imperial Hotel here last night (Sept 20).
Fatimah said that beginning this year, her ministry also provides support to the recovery community with low-income family empowerment or LIFE grants for skilling or upskilling training, and assistance for income generating activities.
“And next year, we will establish half-way transit shelters for recovering persons without families released from correctional and mental health care institutions in Sarawak,” she added.
Meanwhile, she said as of 2022, a total of 20 One Stop Centres for Addiction (OSCAs) have been set up at government clinics covering all the 12 administrative divisions of Sarawak.
She said OSCAs are set up to increase access to treatment and rehabilitation of drug and substance abuse.
“All of the OSCAs are under the management of Sarawak State Department of Health and besides that, we also have two recovery community development and intervention centres established under the One Stop Committee (OSCs),” she said.
At the localised level, the ministry’s collective actions through OSC for tackling drug and substance issues is moving in the right direction on drug demand reduction (DDR, she said.
