A Natural Response to Drug Misuse Problems: A Review of Drug-User Treatment Services of Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper reviews and describes the natural processes through which the people of a Third World country, Bangladesh, have been trying to provide treatment to drug misusers. As the demand for medical help increases, different organizations develop to cater to the needs. Bangladesh has followed the age-old ashram model and the contemporary medical hospital model to provide services to its addicts. In reality the drug misuse treatment providers are still evolving through different learning stages about the biopsychosocial manifestations of addiction. According to the authors, the stages of learning can be divided into three phases: 1) the early period of confusion and enthusiasm, 2) the period of truism, and 3) the period of pragmatism. The people who have gained experience in running treatment centers in the last decade need to form alliances to share their experiences in order to develop rational models for drug treatment programs in Bangladesh. It is also important that they develop methods to monitor providers' activities and to protect clients' safety and interests.

A Review of Substance Use Disorder Treatment in Developing World Communities

“…22 By answering broad questions about ownership, funding sources, and types of services provided, the overviews of treatment models and NGO involvement in Nigeria provide both critical information for planning future treatment and research programs in that country and a framework for exploring the substance use environment in other countries. 6,23 Along the same vein, the comparison of the medical hospital model and the ashram model in Bangladesh 25 and the overview of available treatment services in China 12 offer starting points for categorizing and planning substance abuse treatment programs in these countries and their regions. Even the more limited studies, such as those confined to a single treatment center, are informative when juxtaposed with one another.…”

“…12 A Bangladesh study characterized treatment for SUD in the country as falling into 2 distinct categories: the medical hospital model and the ashram model of spiritual. 25 Whereas facilities that employ the medical hospital model are staffed by medical professionals, ashram treatment centers are run by nonmedical social activists, including Christian ministers. Historically, public hospitals have dominated the treatment market under a state-run health care system; however, with private providers now allowed to operate, private for-profit as well as nonprofit drug treatment centers have begun to emerge.…”

“…Historically, public hospitals have dominated the treatment market under a state-run health care system; however, with private providers now allowed to operate, private for-profit as well as nonprofit drug treatment centers have begun to emerge. 25…”

Substance Abuse Disorders Treatment in El Salvador: Analysis of Policy-Making-Related Failure

“…Substance user treatment in developing countries is insufficient to meet the need, inequitably distributed, and inefficiently used, which results in a large majority of people with these disorders receiving no care at all (Dua et al, 2011). Like in El Salvador, the few treatment options that do exist are often “grass-roots” responses to the problem, most frequently faith-based residential treatment programs (Hansen, 2004, 2005; Hossain & Ahmed, 1999; Mohatt et al, 2007). These programs are often neither evidence-based nor of high quality (Dua et al, 2011), but are congruent with many people's view of substance use as a moral failing rather than a disease.…”

With God's Help I Can Do It: Crack Users’ Formal and Informal Recovery Experiences in El Salvador

“…These often include faith-based residential treatment programs (Hansen, 2004, 2005; Hossain & Ahmed, 1999; Mohatt et al, 2007). On the one hand, personal, community, and religious approaches to substance use may be more culturally congruent with the values of cultures in developing countries as they focus on repairing community and family relations, and spirituality (Mohatt et al, 2007).…”