For the subject that was selected, “Multi-centre of rehabilitation and substitution for drug-addicted people.” in the area of Anavros in the municipality of Volos, the reason was given by a TV broadcasting of the journalist Tasos Kouloglou on 9/5/2005 under the title “The stigma” and on 18/5/2005 under the title “From heroin to ecstasy”. Drug problems, programmes of rehabilitation of patients in Europe, in the U.S.A., the ideal Swiss model and lastly the situation in Greece, meaning the task of OKANA and the reactions of the neighbours not only for the existing rehabilitation centres but also for the future ones were presented in these broadcastings.
The hospitalization of drug-addicted people in Greece does not come under a network, as it exists, but it does not evolve only in the big urban centres (Athens, Thessaloniki, Piraeus). The provincial towns do not have any resources and programmes in order to “cure” and inform its addictive citizens. The later are crowded in the waiting lists of these centres without knowing if they are alive in three or four years (this is the average waiting in the OKANA programmes in Greece). Thus, the creation of rehabilitation centres of drug-addicted people in provinces is an urgent and crucial need. Katerina Matsa, head of the programme “18 ANO”, states: “Provinces come in a second place in the sense that all of us can see from the various researches that come into light and from the discussions about the outcomes of these researches, that the spreading of drugs is huge in all provincial towns, especially in those with a port there are no remediate programmes”.
The term “rehabilitation” includes, apart from detoxication of the patients or the decrease of their physical lesion (addiction, decrease of the dose, substitutes etc.) their social incorporation, meaning their removal from the margin and the development of the ability to live an “organized” everyday life that does not revolve around substances. Their full incorporation can be achieved only through their communication and compromise with the society in which they live. An isolated detoxication unit just incorporates them in another kind of margin and prompts them in the “penalty of prison”.
Despite the public perception, drug-addicted patients during the period of their participation to the rehabilitation programmes show offensive attitudes (thefts, beatings etc.) in a percentage of 8% (KETHEA data). Thus, we jump to the conclusion that the rehabilitation centres that are located inside inhabited areas help users to be integrated without putting the residents into risk.
The Rehabilitation and Substitution Multi-Centre of Drug-Addicted People in the area of Anavros of the Municipality of Volos is situated inside the urban tissue of the city and moreover in an area of high rateable values and is directly connected to the hospital of the city. My intention was to design a centre that would correspond to the functional needs and standards of a programme of complete rehabilitation of the patients while the models that I studied were the Swiss prisons for drug-addicts Soengroun and “Ithaki” in Sindos in Thessaloniki.