St Lucia: Services resume at Turning Point Rehabilitation Centre

St Lucia: Lead Counsellor of the Turning Point Rehabilitation Centre, Robert Huggins, has praised the dedicated staff of the drug and alcohol rehabilitation establishment.

“I work with a staff of people who are experienced, involved, and enthusiastic in the work that they do,” he said. “At the turning point, we provide support to persons with substance abuse disorders. If you feel like you have reached the point where you cannot control your drug or alcohol use, we provide a safe space, support, education, medical treatment, and counselling to help you reach sobriety.”

Huggins said the COVID-19 pandemic presented several challenges for the institution.

“The pandemic impacted negatively on a lot of our services. The most glaring was that due to the demand for nurses, nurses were reassigned from Turning Point to assist in more urgent areas. Consequently, we had to limit our services and only offer outpatient services because there wasn’t sufficient staff to be able to operate for 24 hours.

“You can imagine even then, during periods of high stress, people would turn to drug use a lot more. So there is a high demand for our services, but we don’t quite have the capacity to meet the demand.

“Thankfully, in the last month, our nurses have returned, and we were able to resume our residential services. We are at a point now where we can provide services and support to people.”

Persons needing help can call or email the Turning Point Rehabilitation Centre for an assessment.

“The number is 458.6400. The email is turning.point@govt.lc. People can call just to ask questions. We are willing and able to help, and we are looking forward to doing so,” Huggins said.

The Turning Point Rehabilitation Centre is located at the Millennium Heights Medical Complex in Ciceron.