‘It can be difficult to help them’

Abstract

Older marginalized citizens with severe substance use are presently a growing population in Denmark. They struggle with comprehensive and complex needs for care and treatment, which put high demands on health and care professionals working with them. Yet, the complexity of their needs for care and the care provided to them is highly understudied. We take our empirical point of departure in an anthropological pilot study of care work in private homes and retirement homes in two municipalities, where we followed care professionals on their shifts and interviewed them in order to identify challenging situations in daily care. Building on Mol’s concept of logic of care (Mol 2008), we examine how the care professionals in their everyday work with substance using older citizens faced dilemmas in the provision of care within the logics of on the one hand Danish standards for “correct” care and on the other respecting the autonomy of substance using citizens.