Acehnese may be facing mental illnesses

Acehnese may be facing mental illnesses

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After the heartening remarks by the World Health Organization
(WHO) that the tsunami-hit areas in Aceh were free of epidemics,
the organization announced Tuesday that mental illnesses might
affect about one-eight of the population of the devastated
province.

"We expect that certain psychiatric disorders will increase.
We expect that people will suffer from severe depression,
anxiety, sleep disorders. We may also witness some increase in
suicide attempts, or in domestic violence...and it might affect
500,000 people," Director of the WHO's Department of Mental
Health and Substance Abuse, Benedetto Saraceno, said.

Saraceno explained that the disorders might appear if the
Acehnese could not resume their daily and economic activities
immediately.

"Psychiatric disorders are closely related to economic and
health recovery in Aceh. But mostly, they should be addressed
with psychosocial responses: empowering women, children, families
and the communities in order to resume their resilience
capacity," Saraceno said.

According to him, the threat might increase the number of
suicides in the country, which is still considered low. He
claimed that the average number of deaths due to suicide in
Indonesia is 24 deaths in every 100,000 population.

Harry Minas, director of Center for International Mental
Health, added that even enormous attention on trauma healing was
not sufficient to avoid the danger of psychiatric illnesses.

"We think that it will not be helpful to the community of Aceh
if we simply focus on the issue of trauma. Most importantly
health and social institutions, be activated, strengthened and
improved. Their reach has to be extended in order to deal with
this situation."

Saraceno stressed that the WHO was not against establishing a
trauma center. But the efforts should be integrated into a
complete health system, relying on community based treatment.

"Our experience in establishing trauma centers, in Cambodia
and Bosnia, were negative," he said.

The man whose office was in Geneva said that there were two
things that had to be done. First was to train community leaders,
women and people who were rooted in the community. Second, to
strengthen health sector in Aceh, where currently there are only
five psychiatrist living.

A National Professional Officer for WHO, Stephanus Widjaja
said that WHO and the Health Ministry was setting up four teams
consisting of experts in psychiatric therapy to train Acehnese in
handling mental illnesses.

"We should be clear that there are no better persons to handle
psychiatric disorders than the locals," he said. (006)