Audit of Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities in ... - SA HealthInfo

facilities have waiting lists, with an average of 6 clients waiting for an available treatmentslot. On average, the waiting period for a treatment slot / bed is 6 days. It should be notedthat none of the facilities in the Northern Cape reported using a waiting list.Despite the fact that these waiting periods are much shorter than those identified in otherprovinces, such as Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (Myers & Fakier, 2007), the presence ofwaiting lists is still worrisome as they may act as a barrier to accessing substance abusetreatment (Grant, 1997; Hser et al., 1998; Tucker et al., 2004). Timely access is importantfor facilitating treatment entry as many substance abusers are ambivalent about seekingtreatment and may have little tolerance for waiting for the next available treatment slot(Kaplan & Johri, 2000).Findings reflect that facilities in Mpumalanga have the lowest treatment occupancy rates,with these facilities operating, on average, at 38.3% of their capacity.4.1.3. Effective use of available treatment slotsIn this study, the effective use of available treatment slots is indicated by the degree towhich clients are retained in treatment. Client retention rates differ broadly acrossfacilities, with some facilities reporting retention rates as low as 30.0%. On average,facilities retain about 70.2% of their clients in treatment. The large variation in theseretention rates points to significant room for service improvement, especially as clientretention is an important proxy indicator of service effectiveness and positive treatmentoutcomes.4.2. RANGE AND DIVERSITY OF SERVICES PROVIDEDDespite growing evidence of an association between the availability of ancillarytreatment services (e.g. psychological and medical care) and treatment outcomes, andevidence-based practice guidelines that emphasise the need to integrate ancillary medicaland mental health services with core addiction services (Durkin, 2002; Lee et al., 2001),findings suggest that substance abuse treatment facilities in South Africa generally fail tomeet this standard. In Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and NorthernCape, clients are provided with ancillary medical and mental health-oriented servicesmuch less frequently than core addiction services. This is similar to findings from66