Taipei City Hospital’s Songde Branch said that drunk drivers referred to its intervention program by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office are less likely to drive drunk again than those who do not take the program or receive proper medical treatment.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in July 2015 instructed the government-run hospital to come up with solutions to the problem of repeated drunk driving and the Songde Branch was selected to establish a team to work with government agencies and the prosecutors’ office to initiate a medical intervention program for drunk drivers.
About 270 people have attended the hospital’s intervention program since it began, about two-thirds of whom were alcoholics, Huang Ming-chyi (黃名琪), a physician at the Songde Branch’s Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Department, told a news conference.
After completing the intervention program or receiving proper medical treatment, the recidivism rate was less than 3 percent in the first six months and less than 7 percent in the first year, she said.
That compares with a recidivism rate of 18.6 percent in the first year for those who did not complete the program or medical treatment, she said, adding that Ministry of Justice figures on drunk driving showed a recividism rate of approximately 30 percent.
In reviewing each case referred by the prosecutors’ office, the hospital first evaluates the severity of alcohol use and prescribe a program based on clinical guidelines for high-risk alcohol drinking issued by the WHO, it said.
The four main aspects of the program are: educational group sessions, brief intervention to increase patients’ self-awareness and address their motivations for drinking, specialized case management and follow-up care for a year, and medical intervention by psychiatrists and physicians to treat mental issues such as depression, anxiety and insomnia.
Ko said that it is better to treat people with drug or alcohol addictions as patients rather than criminals.
Substance addiction has taken a heavy toll on society and the effect of moral persuasion is limited, he said.
The government must deal with it through comprehensive planning and assistance via medical intervention, he added.
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