70% of those admitted at Saint Giles Hospital are substance use patients

The rise in drug abuse cases in Fiji has seen a worrying increase in the number of patients being admitted at St. Giles Hospital with 756 admissions as of September this year.

While speaking at the Speaker’s Debate, St. Giles Hospital Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. Myriellie Allen says there has been an increase in admissions since back in 2021 when they recorded 570 admissions.

She says over the years, it has been increasing, and last year, they recorded 886 patients.

Dr. Allen adds among these patients, about 70 percent of those admitted are substance use patients and this does not include those with a coexisting or an existing mental health disorder.

Dr. Allen says seeing the last four months of average admissions in the 90s, they will easily hit the thousand mark by December.

Dr. Allen further says if all these numbers are added up, there are about 90 to 95 percent who were admitted due to drug-related issues and among those who are drug users, 92 percent of them use more than one drug with the most common ones being marijuana, methamphetamine, glue and benzene.

She says out of those using drug substances from October to date, they have recorded 57 young people who were positive for HIV and 90 percent of them are male and 10 percent female with the youngest being 14 years old.

Dr. Allen says years ago, they were just able to identify hotspots like the Suva to Nausori corridor, but now, they have patients from all over Fiji, including the outer islands like Gau, Lau Taveuni, Ovalau, Kadavu, and up into the interior.

She says the most common reasons for bringing them to the hospital are aggression physically or verbally, damaging property, threatening villagers, talking irrelevantly, responding to non-apparent stimuli and disorganized behaviour.

Dr. Allen says from the health perspective, they do the prevention in the sense that they try to treat or prevent further damage to the brain and the mental health of a person, and then also limit their access.

She says ideally, she would advocate for a therapeutic community or a closed facility, especially if the family support or access as those are big problems.