From Mad in Puerto Rico: The use of substances such as opioids has created a public health crisis in Puerto Rico. Socio-structural and demographic factors affect and exacerbate this crisis. For women who are survivors of violence, who receive treatment and who have children, there are several additional barriers. These include, but are not limited to, the lack and limitation of health services, government policies, and the stigma that exists. For mothers, there is the fear that their children will be removed from them due to the stigma that exists regarding substance use and mental health. In addition, there is a great limitation regarding services that allow the presence of children during aid, cost, and transportation. Furthermore, there is a lack of information, coordination, and collection of statistics that are available to the public and that are reliable. This affects the extent to which we can work to address this problem.
Read the full article here and the English translation here.
