Aceh's mentally ill suffer after being affected by tsunami

Aceh's mentally ill suffer after being affected by tsunami

Dan Eaton, Reuters/Banda Aceh

Feared by their relatives and locked away for hours every day,
life was never easy for patients at the only mental hospital in
Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province.

But the giant waves that tore through the provincial capital,
Banda Aceh, the day after Christmas swamped the dilapidated
collection of low-rise hospital buildings several kilometres from
the sea.

The tsunami that killed tens of thousands in the city filled
the 300-bed facility with thick black mud that is only now being
shovelled out by Australian soldiers.

The lives of those who inhabit the concrete cells and wards
will take much longer to rebuild.

Some traumatized patients climbed trees to escape the water,
while the rest fled into Banda Aceh, doctors told Reuters.
Of 350 hospital patients, only about 140 have returned after the
earthquake and tsunami. Many are filthy and wild-eyed.

They have been joined by about a dozen people suffering trauma
from the tsunami, the first of many health officials expect to
need help after a disaster that left more than 230,000
Indonesians dead or missing.

"The shock caused by extreme life events such as disasters can
express itself as mental disorders, depression and
sleeplessness," said Dr Kris, chief of medical services at Banda
Aceh Mental Hospital.

The Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami struck more than a dozen
nations around the Indian Ocean rim, leaving nearly 300,000 dead
or missing from Thailand to Somalia.

As many as 90 percent of survivors may have suffered
psychological trauma. Children are most at risk, mental health
experts said at a meeting in Thailand this month.
Tens of thousands would need either medication or counselling by
doctors, relatives and religious leaders, they said.
Help may be on the way.

The Turkish Red Crescent Society, already working with the
World Food Programme to provide emergency relief to the
hospital's patients, said it was in talks with the government
about building a new facility.

"There is a proposal for the construction of a new hospital
building, but in the first three months they need emergency
things like food," said Bulent Ozturk, an official from the
Turkish group working at the hospital.

He said plans included a new trauma centre to cope with an
influx of tsunami-related patients, but said it could be more
than a year before the new building is ready.

Kris said the number of patients at his hospital was set to
rocket as dozens of aid groups and foreign armies wound down
medical operations at makeshift refugee camps.

A 2002 survey showed many Acehnese already suffered trauma
after nearly 30 years of rebellion in the province, he said.

"I think it will rise three or four times from the tsunami,"
Kris said, but he added the stigma of mental illness may keep
some needy people away.

"We already had a trauma centre, but nobody came, because they
thought if they come here it means they are mad," Kris said.

REUTERS

GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 12, 2005 09:19:34