New Clinic for Psychiatric Care, Addiction Treatment Opens in Casablanca

Casablanca has welcomed a new medical clinic specializing in psychiatric care and addiction treatment, Villa des Lilas-Anfa.

The Villa des Lilas-Anfa clinic has 73 hospital beds in single rooms, eight psychiatric hospitalization units, and a psychosocial rehabilitation center. The hospital offers its patients “full-time” or part-time hospitalization in “day hospitals,” according to a press release from the clinic, quoted by Morocco’s state media.

Patients are “generally assessed upon entry by a specialist through clinical interviews and psychometric tests,” the source adds.

Patient care includes “visits from psychiatrists and psychologists, and … participation in numerous therapeutic, occupational and other group therapy activities.”

Villa des Lilas-Anfa joins its sister psychiatric care and addiction clinic, Villa des Lilas de l’Oasis, which opened in Casablanca in 2011.

“We wanted to create a medicalized space that would raise very high everything that made the success of the first Villa des Lilas de l’Oasis Clinic,” said Hachem Tyal, psychiatrist and founder of the Villa des Lilas clinics, in the press release.

Tyal underlined the clinics’ “excellent psychiatry based on diagnostic rigor, quality of care and ‘humanization of the relationship.’”

The Villa des Lilas-Anfa clinic “offers special attention to supporting the families of patients through regular meetings with the clinic’s nursing teams and the implementation of specific programs,” the press release added.

Though privately owned, the new Casablanca psychiatric clinic supports the national initiative to improve Morocco’s health infrastructure, particularly in terms of psychiatric care.

Morocco’s health ministry aims to establish regional hospitals specializing in psychiatry. In February, King Mohammed VI inaugurated the construction works on a psychiatric hospital in Agadir. The health ministry also seeks to construct psychiatric hospitals in Kenitra and Kelaat Sraghna.

The Moroccan government is also working to raise awareness about the importance of mental health. In some Moroccan families, mental health remains a taboo subject, leaving individuals with legitimate concerns without proper care.