Villa El Quinqué Therapeutic Community undergoing renovation
- Written by Lourdes Pichs Rodríguez
- Published in Health
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Photo: By the author
With 38 years of work, the Villa El Quinqué Therapeutic Community is considered a paradigm in comprehensive care for drug dependence and one of the main centers of its type in Cuba, due to the particularities of the program implemented for the care of patients with some addiction.
Belonging to the Cuban Medical Services Branch (SMC) of Holguín, this institution initially only took care of drug addicts, but the multidisciplinary teams of professionals, linked to the unit, decided to undertake the rehabilitation of all addictions, from dependent on mobile phones, games, drugs, alcohol and even highly complex drugs.
Located on the Central Highway via Bayamo, just five kilometers from the Frank País International Airport, El Quinqué is distinguished for being a therapeutic community with a carefully conceived treatment program that occupies the patient all day with activities, since the patient count on a personal therapist and collective therapies, whose main objective is to reduce the consumption of drugs that caused the admission or remove him from the environment that led him to dependency.
Dr. Víctor González Pérez, SMC director in Holguín, highlighted that they work with a life project for each patient, seeking to make them recover their personal ego and leave with a life project. "This has allowed the program to have a very favorable impact internationally."
He pointed out that more than 3,490 people from some 60 countries have passed through there, including Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, the United States and Angola."
The facility, with capacity for 28 patients with a companion, provides important income to the Cuban health system, about 16 thousand dollars for each person treated there, financing for the purchase of medications and expenditure items for health institutions.
El Quinqué under renovation
Currently, El Quinqué, which was entirely made of wood in its beginnings, is undergoing a renovation project. Six rooms are in the process of finishing and others have been repaired, they are working on the pool and the care block.
These actions have allowed the opening of a new location for the provision of wellness and quality of life services, based on the incorporation of treatments related to meditation and other relaxing techniques.
In this regard, González Pérez explained that "our professionals work very hard here on psychotherapy, that is, with the magic of words, to influence the total health of the individual and thus change their addictive behavior."
He added that the institution plan to repair a block of rooms in 2025, which resembles the house where Commander in Chief Fidel was born in Birán. “Its typical structure will be maintained, because it is part of the center's heritage and was conceived thus, at the time, in honor of the Leader of the Revolution, since the idea of implementing this type of program against addictions in Cuba came from him.”
Regarding future projections of Villa El Cocal, which is part of this community, he clarified that it is now in the middle of a capital repair process, with a view to putting it in function of the Wellbeing and Quality of Life Program, aimed at the provision of services to mixed and foreign companies located in the Holguín territory and to anyone who needs it.
