Elfenbenskystens nationale program for mental sundhed peger på, at flere tusinder har brug for psykisk hjælp. Det korrekte tal på, hvor mange, der lider af psykisk traumer efter urolighederne i det vestafrikanske land, er der imidlertid ingen, der kan sige noget bestemt om.
Sundhedspersonale og befolkningen fremhæver, at der er meget få steder at søge hjælp.
ABIDJAN, 25 October 2011 (IRIN): Amid the still-visible damage from election unrest in Ivory Coasts main city Abidjan is another less tangible but very real form of destruction – psychological trauma.
It is difficult to say how many people need mental health care after the recent unrest, according to health experts; the Health Ministry says it has no such figures. But health workers and residents told IRIN people seeking help with conflict-related trauma have few places to turn.
“My youngest cries herself to sleep every night,” said 28-year-old Bakary, who saw his wife dragged into the street and shot dead. “We would like help but what options are available to us?”
The government-funded National Programme for Mental Health (PNSM) estimates that thousands of people who need mental health services have no access to such care.
“There are not enough qualified people for the population’s psychiatric needs,” PNSM coordinator Roger Delafosse told IRIN. PNSM was set up in 2007 to train people in psychological care. But this was five years after the 2002-2003 crisis; Delafosse said even after the earlier conflict mental health care was not considered a priority.
Researchers say that worldwide while awareness of mental health issues has improved somewhat in recent years, a continued low awareness and a lack of political commitment still stand in the way of proper care.
The Ivoirian Health Ministry did not give a figure for the ratio of mental health professionals among the population, but for 21 million people there are three mental healthcare facilities: a psychiatric hospital in Bingerville just outside Abidjan, an outpatient unit in the political capital Yamoussoukro, and a facility in the north-central city of Bouaké.
The only clinical psychological services currently available in the west are run by the medical humanitarian orgranization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), according to the NGO; hospitals in the western towns of Daloa and Guiglo are supposed to provide psychological services but such posts are vacant.
After fighting triggered by Côte d’Ivoire’s 2002 rebellion the government set up a unit known as the Cellule de Solidarité, which offered psychological support to victims of fighting. But it was closed in 2005. Noel Faiteh, a psychiatrist at Bingerville Hospital, said something similar needs to be set up again.
Many of the people coming to the Bingerville facility these days are acting on sheer desperation, Faiteh told IRIN. “Even as I speak there are new patients arriving.”
Witness to violence
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