At least 15% of South Africans face some sort of struggle with substance abuse, according to statistics released by Wits University. This is hardly surprising as we are known for our drinking culture, which pervades socioeconomic divisions. In addition to this, the issues that South Africans face, including a high unemployment rate, poverty and broken family structures, make for the ideal breeding ground for addiction.

Despite this, rehabilitation is a privilege that belongs to the elite. While government centres do exist, the waiting lists are long, and resources are often in short supply. Private rehabilitation centres are pricey and, without the help of medical aid, inaccessible for the majority of the population. For those who can attend these institutions, however, they come with their share of criticisms — some of which have been documented in the media.

A former resident (as patients are called) of Healing Wings Rehabilitation Centre in Mbombela (formerly Nelspruit) recently took to TikTok to speak about her alleged experience at the rehab centre. In the video, which has since been taken down, Jariella, as she goes by, compared the centre to the school under fire in the Netflix documentary The Program. The documentary follows a woman who sets out to expose the corruption and abuse of what is called “the troubled teen industry”, years after being sent to a disciplinary school. In it, the woman and other former attendees of the school detail experiences involving the abuse of children by staff members of the facility.

Jariella was part of the youth programme at Healing Wings, which she calls a boarding school at the start of her video. “I went there in 2018 after my 16th birthday because I had a very severe eating disorder that almost took my life. It was a choice between a rehabilitation centre in Cape Town or this boarding school in Mpumalanga.” Tagged in the caption of Jariella’s post is Paris Hilton, whose response led to a viral spread of the video across the social media platform.

Jariella lists the rules of her programme, including no talking, boot camp at 3am, rules around eating, boundaries, open doors and mandatory Christianity. “If we weren’t doing good enough, they would wake us up at 3am or 4am with whistles and banging pots, give us one minute to change and go out in the middle of winter to do a boot camp ... it was so bad that a few girls were throwing up, a few girls even wet themselves. Afterwards, it would be followed by two hours of deep cleaning, prayer, reflection and maybe the ‘no talking’ boundaries next as punishment.

“I obviously came in for an eating disorder and I was absolutely micromanaged. I had someone watch my food at all times and tell me, ‘you’re not taking big enough bites’ ... I wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom two hours after meals, I wasn’t allowed to go out on the balcony two hours after meals, I wasn’t allowed to brush my teeth without someone watching me; I had to have someone watch me in the shower,” continues Jariella.

Hurling insults

Nick* attended a reform school in the US and describes the programme as one that “breaks you down to build you up again ... If you misbehave, they put you in a room and you’re not allowed to speak to anyone. It’s basically like solitary confinement. I know some friends who were in there for eight months and then 10 months. I was in there for five weeks. They also had intense groups where they would hurl insults at you ... they tried to make me beat up one of the other kids who was my friend [and] had been bullied. They wanted me to beat him up so he could relive his trauma [and] could ‘face’ it.”

Healing Wings executive director Garth Lucas rejects the claims made by Jariella, who used the phrase “exactly the same” to compare the rehab to the disciplinary school described in The Program, which is similar to the institution Nick describes. Healing Wings SA (HWSA) “is a registered treatment centre, not a boarding school. HWSA provides professional therapy alongside educational services offered through an EMIS-registered school for individuals with significant challenges.”

An EMIS-registered school is one registered with the department of basic education’s education management information systems.

“Negative reviews are not rejected by HWSA. However, social media platforms are not proper avenues for addressing serious allegations. HWSA is a reputable rehabilitation centre that benefits from enduring inter-professional relationships across the country and boasts a long-standing, proven track record of quality care.

“Jariella’s assertions about manual labour are innately deceptive and dishonest in that she achieved grade 11 and grade 12 with a varsity pass while engaging in equine riding lessons and therapy activities. Adolescents at Healing Wings contribute very little to the needs of the community in terms of manual labour, due to their primary workload being academic.”

Megan* is another youth programme resident. She was admitted in March 2021 and discharged in December of the same year for depression, anxiety and risky behaviours. As with many cases that end up in long-term treatment (the Healing Wings programme is at least nine months long for youth and at least six months for adults), Megan landed up in the Lowveld after going to Akeso Clinic various times.

With regards to the programme, Megan says that there were positive and negative aspects. “It was definitely quite a difficult experience. I feel like when I was there, there wasn’t a lot of counselling that happened; I think I saw my counsellor only twice. There were also good things, like horse riding was great. I did agree with a few of the rules [though] a few ... I didn’t agree with. It definitely made me more resilient. It proved to me that I can do hard things and push myself a lot harder than I thought I was capable of.”

Injury

However, Megan says the most difficult moment for her was after she fell off a horse and suffered an injury that wasn’t treated seriously by staff. “I was not examined until two days later and because of a staff member’s insistence, they concluded that it was not serious despite extreme swelling and pain. They gave me Panado that evening and the next morning and then only Deep Heat after that, as I was then told I was med-seeking.”

“Med-seeking” is a term used to describe behaviours in which  residents seek medication despite not necessarily needing it.

“My parents were informed only on the third day, which was the day before I was going home. I received medical care only once I was back in Cape Town. I still had to do physical work in the days before I left for holiday, which the doctor believed worsened the injury ... I was unable to do any exercise or heavy lifting for eight months after the injury and received a year of weekly physio treatment.”

While the youth programme has received negative attention from former residents, Bruce* attended both the youth and the adult programmes. He was 18 when admitted to Healing Wings and completed his matric at the youth centre before moving over to the adult centre, where he had to begin his programme again due to relapsing during the December vacation.

Bruce believes it is better for families to wait until the child is over 18 before sending them to a rehab centre as he found the youth centre to cause more harm than good due to various factors. One of these is what he called the unjustified issuing of “consequences” by leaders in the community, who were usually boys who had reached a point in their programme where they were trusted with monitoring others. Consequences are issued when rules are broken. The receiver is required to do a work allocation, ranging from washing dishes to working in the lands. While they exist for every programme, the youth boys programme has the most consequences, with some boys accumulating over a year’s worth within days.

Tessa Otten, a social worker who has worked extensively with addicts and in treatment centres, says the problem with having a consequence-based programme is that these consequences can often seem punitive.

“For everything you do in life, there is a consequence. It’s either going to be positive or negative. Hopefully, we learn from that consequence and learn to take responsibility. But if we’re looking at a punitive consequence, all that’s going to breed is a lot of shame in a person and shame obviously being, ‘I’m bad, I’m wrong, I can’t do anything right’. And the thing with people struggling with addiction is that there’s always a lot of shame.

“Consequences are necessary because in active addiction, people don’t care about the consequences. But we need to make sure that the consequence is constructive and something the person is going to learn from.”

For Bruce, being one of the oldest boys on the programme was frustrating and isolating, as it was clear that not many of the others took it seriously and, as Otten implies, the consequence system quickly lost its intended meaning of teaching a lesson for some boys.

“When I got to the adult centre, it was a lot more calm because half of the people actually chose to be there while at the youth centre, I don’t think a single boy wanted to be there. It’s life or death for many of the men that are on the adult programme. Through the physical work, I learnt how capable I am of completing something. We built a damn soakaway. Who can say that they’ve built a soakaway? Most people don’t even know what a soakaway is.”

Healing Wings is sometimes compared with Noupoort Christian Care Centre drug rehabilitation in the Northern Cape, which is considered a step-up option for residents who do not respond to the Healing Wings one.

Nikki Munitz, who is a director of a treatment centre and the author of Fraud, a memoir that details her experience in prison, was a patient at Noupoort in 2001 for 11 months. “I was quite broken when I got there. I was quite grateful to have a roof over my head and three meals a day but having been to prison post that, prison was a more pleasant experience. In prison, you have human rights while in Noupoort, you have zero.”

Harrowing

These are harrowing words and bring to mind the two known deaths that have taken place at the centre. Logan Klingenberg was 16 when he was found dead in a cell at Noupoort with his chain around his neck at the same time that Munitz was at the treatment centre. The chain was allegedly placed there to prevent him from sleeping or sitting while going through heroin withdrawal. The two men responsible for Klingenberg at the time of his death were found not guilty of the charges of murder laid against them.

According to a report compiled by the government, “Two monitors, one of whom is an ex-police officer and a member of the Brixton murder and robbery unit, were responsible for the supervision of Logan during the discipline programme he was subjected to. It is alleged that at 10am on May 15 2001, Logan’s motionless body was found hanging against the door. The police later informed officials that the youth could never have been able to hang himself with the piece of chain which was used. Furthermore, there were no bruises around his neck to indicate that he hanged himself. There were, however, bruises all over his body. It was further confirmed that it was not unusual for patients to be assaulted if they did not follow the instructions of the monitors during such a punishment programme.”

Munitz goes on to describe the programme. “We were starved, we were fed food that was off, we were given ridiculous punishments, we weren’t allowed to speak to our families properly. It was absolutely degrading.” Munitz maintained sobriety for eight years after leaving Noupoort but says a large part of her recovery was white-knuckling due to fear of returning to Noupoort.

While these allegations are based on reports from two decades ago, Noupoort was approached for comment to discuss the current nature of the programme and how it may have changed, but did not provide one.

Robert* has been to many treatment centres around SA over the past 20 years and has named Anchor Ranch as the harshest programme he has attended, even more so than Noupoort. Experience is subjective, but Robert says those who come from Healing Wings, Noupoort or prison to Anchor Ranch are begging to go back within a month of their stay. He believes that the centre is operated on the same basis of “fear and intimidation, and then they hide behind this Christian concept, which is very cunning and clever”.

Robert enjoyed being in a safe environment in nature, as Anchor Ranch is located on a farm in Potchefstroom in the North West, but there were things he witnessed that he feels never should have happened.

“A 14-year-old patient took a walk around with a new patient. Two hours later, this new guy was found with his wrists slit in the bathroom. The poor 14-year-old was accused because he was seen chatting to this guy. For two weeks afterwards, they cuffed this poor teenager to a bed [each] night. Every night when they’d leave, I’d hear him crying, and he had nothing to do with the other guy’s incident.”

Lily* was at Anchor Ranch after leaving Healing Wings for engaging in a romantic relationship with a volunteer. She says the Anchor Ranch programme differed slightly from Healing Wings in that it was stricter in certain ways, even though there were also similarities.

“Some pretty hectic things have happened at Anchor. Consequences could sometimes be too harsh. For example, this girl was tired all the time but she was depressed out of her mind and she always wanted to sleep. Eventually, she just lay on the grass and refused to get up. She wasn’t being harmful to herself or anyone else and the staff pepper-sprayed her on the grass. They were shouting and screaming at her and she was just lying there. That sort of thing I don’t really understand.”

Anchor Ranch was also not available for comment, despite being approached.

The experiences of rehab are as varied as the residents themselves, but attitude and resolve can make a big difference to the final outcome.

* Names were changed to protect identities.

• The author was at Healing Wings for treatment in 2019.