The Andalusia Minister of Health and Families, Jesús Aguirre, reported yesterday that “the Junta de Andalusia has treated a total of 2,054 people for addiction to pathological gambling so far this year, through the 100 Outpatient Treatment Centres (CTA) integrated into the Public Addiction Attention Network (RPAA)”.
“These centres provide specialised care through prevention, orientation, rehabilitation and social incorporation on an outpatient basis, care that is complemented by the RPAA Day Centres.”
According to the counsellor, the Junta de Andalusia has been working in coordination with the municipalities to execute “the Community Prevention Program Cities against Drugs, which covers areas such as education, family and work, and in which 16 provincial coordinators of the territorial delegations participate provincial and provincial drug addiction centres and 235 coordinators of activities”.
The counsellor has also reported that “through annual calls for grants amounting to €250,000, the Department finances programs for the prevention and support of treatment in the field of pathological gambling and other behavioural addictions. These include outreach and prevention campaigns, information workshops aimed at professionals and the general population, support and complementary actions to treatment and social incorporation”.
“For the 2021 call, an increase in the financing of these programs is expected,” he added.
“We must be aware that pathological gambling constitutes a true social and health problem that, in today’s society, has acquired more than remarkable dimensions and scope, above all due to the new possibilities and channels for gambling that are facilitated by the technologies of the information and communication”.
In response to the increase in online gambling amongst those aged under 25, “the Ministry of Health and Families is designing specific prevention and care programs for adolescents and young people and the IV Andalusian Plan on Drugs and Addictions will influence this theme”.
The counsellor concluded: “we have planned to have the associative movement, promoting the participation and involvement of families in pathologies of young people in order to be, both the RPAA and the associations, coordinated in information and awareness; prevention and treatment; training of professionals and action with Primary Care and Mental Health”
