Dr Altaf Hussain welcomed Lynne Neagle, the deputy minister for Mental Health and Well Being, to the Brynawel Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation centre.
Dr Hussain, who is chairman of the charity that runs Brynawel, is also a Regional MS for South Wales West. He escorted Ms Neagle around the centre just outside Llanharan and explained that it was set up 40 years ago.
Dr Hussain said that while they had received a number of ministerial visits in the past, this was the first from a minister responsible for mental health services in Wales.
Acting operations manager Sue Gwyn explained that the centre can accommodate 20 people at a time and also provides services for other forms of addiction including sex, gambling and prescription drugs.
The main treatment offered is a 16 week therapy programme informed by Cognitive and Dialectical Behaviour Therapies. They also offer the only rehabilitation programme in Wales for people with alcohol related brain damage (ARBD).She said that up to 35 per cent of the very heaviest drinkers have some form of ARBD and that it is believed to be the cause of between 10 and 24 per cent of all cases of dementia.
Sue told the minister that when accommodation is usually found for ARBD patients, it was usually in places designed to cater for older people with dementia and lacked the appropriate support.
But this was the wrong thing to do and often contributed to further cognitive decline in the patient.
The minister was able to speak to two people who have successfully undergone treatment at Brynawel for alcohol addiction and who now volunteer with the charity to help others. They explained their own circumstances and how the charity had helped them to return to a normal way of life.
Sue said that the capacity they have at Brynawel to do this work is underutilised with health boards and other organisations often being unaware of its existence. They had recently written to all seven health board asking what care pathways they had for people with ARBD. Only three replied and only one had a limited diagnostic and care pathway but this had insufficient capacity to address the needs of the local population. The other two did not have any pathway to treat such patients.
Sue told the Minister that the anticipated publication of the Welsh Government Treatment Framework for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and Support for alcohol related brain damage made this the time to raise awareness of this condition and also of the opportunity at Brynawel to provide meaningful rehabilitation.
She added: “It is our belief that anyone can recover given the right support. We will continue to aspire to be a centre of excellence in offering this support.”