A fire that destroyed two rooms in a building in Mirador de Urdenor on January 26 warned that a rehabilitation clinic that was closed a few months ago is still operating and has a file at the First City Police Station of Guayaquil.

It is not the first time that a fire in the country exposes an irregular addiction treatment center or an unlicensed space. If it was part of the administrative process and was closed, who is responsible for reopening it?

There were no victims in the fire on Thursday, but similar events with human losses are remembered in previous years. When they happen, controls are carried out and maintained, in fact in 2022 22 irregular centers were closed in Guayaquil, but apparently the monitoring methodology is not sufficient.

Now that property has been definitively closed, and the owner has been fined $3,150, the equivalent of seven unified basic wages, for signing a “non-permitted or regulated activity agreement.”

So far in January, the activities of three rehabilitation centers have been suspended due to violations of municipal ordinances. This gives direction to the clandestine centers to continue moving, as well as the need to care for people with addictions. 150 patients are cared for daily in the territory of the program For a Future Without Medicines, Bicentenario Hospital alone.

Two issues that come together: one, the increase in demand for help from addicts who need honest institutions, with responsible professionals, and the other, the control of clandestine centers and a basic guide to identify formal institutions, even for those who rent people who profit from the need for rehabilitation. ANDThe municipality receives complaints, as does the Ministry of Health, but this does not release them from the responsibility of controlling irregularities and harshly punishing fraudsters. (OR)