Browsing by Author "Walter, Sheridan"

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    A framework for compassionate clinical responses to addiction
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-01) Walter, Sheridan; Palk, Andrea; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Addiction is a particularly contentious issue, with discourses regarding, not only its definition but also the appropriate way of responding to and treating it, often framed in an uncompromising manner. This might come from the tendency to view drug use through a purely moral lens. This perspective, however, contributes substantially to addiction stigma, discrimination, and common misconceptions about addicts in society. It is also not uncommon for healthcare practitioners and institutions to espouse dominant social-moral norms of addiction, which add to the social exclusion, ostracization, and marginalisation of addicted people. As a result, addicts face significant obstacles in accessing health and social services, particularly if they are not yet ready to quit their substance use. This often leads to a denial of health care, or limited access to health care, based on certain preconditions. This is important as drug use can have adverse health and social consequences. For example, people who inject drugs are at significant risk of contracting blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis C virus. In addition, deaths due to overdose have become increasingly alarming. Harm reduction strategies and programs that seek to minimise the harmful consequences of drug use do not require one to abstain from drug use. Abstinence often acts as a high threshold precondition to accessing essential treatment programs such as mental health care, TB care, and emergency services. Harm reduction proves to be a pragmatic, unbiased, more feasible and compelling response to addiction than abstinence-based treatment programs. Drawing from a South African, low-threshold opioid agonist therapy project, which is informed by salient features of the Southern African notion of ubuntu, I argue that social cohesion or group solidarity significantly improves retention in harm reduction programmes such as methadone maintenance treatment programmes. From this, I formulate my argument and I contend that ubuntu-related insights can serve as a framework informing clinical responses to addiction, in general. Specifically, this framework might augment harm reduction strategies, aid in providing non-punitive compassionate care, address the fundamental problem of social exclusion, isolation, and loneliness, and restore much-needed dignity and justice in responses to addiction.