Mental trauma haunts Philippines typhoon survivors
By Martin Abbugao | AFP News –
Credits: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/mental-trauma-haunts-philippines-typhoon-survivors-082524641.html
Rodico
Basilides visits a forlorn cross that stands as a memorial to his family who
died in the catastrophic Philippine typhoon, one of countless survivors who are
being forced to grieve without professional counselling.
“This is for
my wife, Gladys, and four children. They were swept away by the waves,”
Basilides, 42, said as he stood alongside the cross made of two sticks tied
together with green string on the floor of what used to be his seaside home.
As Basilides,
a mini-bus driver, left the rain-soaked ruins, he met Jovelyn Taniega, a friend
who lost her husband and six children when Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed the
central Philippines with unprecedented ferocity on November 8.
Taniega, 39,
still looking to be in a state of shock, had also returned to the spot where
her family was swept away in giant storm surges, trying to find some solace by
being close to where she last touched them.
“I'm alone
now. It's very painful, I miss my family a lot,” she said, shielding herself
from the rain with an umbrella. “I feel like I'm going crazy.”
As the rescue
and emergency phase of helping the survivors winds down, medical and social
workers are appealing for trauma experts to counsel typhoon survivors such as
Taniega and Basilides.
But like all
other aspects of the response to the disaster, the scale of the psychological
needs is overwhelming.
More than
5,200 people have been confirmed killed and another 1,600 are missing after
Haiyan tore across some of the country's poorest islands, generating
tsunami-like waves that left dozens of towns in ruins.
About four
million people have been left homeless and 10 million affected, according to
the government.
Too few
experts for giant task
Amid such
widespread mental trauma, the Department of Health has been able to deploy just
21 psychiatrists and psychologists, according to Bernardo Vicente, director of
the government's National Center for Mental Health.
"Definitely,
we don't," Vicente told AFP when asked if there were enough professional counsellors
available to treat traumatised survivors in the disaster zones.
Vicente
pointed out there were just 600 registered psychiatrists nationwide, most of
whom worked in large city hospitals and unable to abandon their duties to help
the typhoon survivors.
He said the
health department's counsellors had worked only in Tacloban, a city of more
than 220,000 people that was among the worst hit and where 1,727 people have
been confirmed killed.
Health
workers in Tacloban say that support is not nearly enough, and the needs will
likely grow as the focus of survivors shifts from putting up makeshift shelters
and looking for food.
"Yes, we
need psychiatrists to come and help," said Marife Garfin, chief nurse of
the Bethany Hospital in Tacloban.
"At the
moment they (survivors) are not able yet to process the whole experience. We
are still in the process of being able to fend for ourselves and survive, get
some food, get some treatment.
"But
probably after a week or two, everything will sink in, everything will come to
mind -- the loss, the separation from loved ones."
Not all
traumatised people require intensive psychological counselling, Vicente
emphasised.
"There
are things you can do which do not require highly trained individuals," he
said.
"Simply
providing hope is enough for the community... simply providing food, lifting
them up and asking: 'how are you?' or giving them a pack of noodles, is already
psychological first aid."
Vicente also
said counselling need not just be one-to-one, and trauma experts would be able
to work with big groups of people.
In the long
run, Vicente said between one and five percent of survivors would likely
develop post-traumatic stress disorder, which required specialised treatment
from experts.
Mathijs
Hoogstad, a psychologist with humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF,
or Doctors Without Borders) in Tacloban, also said survivors would be able to
get important support from within their communities.
Speaking with
family, friends and church figures would help survivors overcome their
traumatic experiences, Hoogstad said.
'I see them
in my dreams'
For people
such as Basilides and Taniega, who live on the outskirts of Tacloban, family
and community support are indeed proving vital in helping them cope with their
tragedies.
Basilides is
living with a local official who has taken in him and his survivor son,
nine-year-old Jack Ross. The son had been found clinging to a piece of wood and
brought to an evacuation centre.
Basilides
said mixing with people helped him forget the pain, and praying offered some
comfort.
But he said
that, in his moments of solitude, the gripping scenes of how the strong current
ripped two of his children from his arms, and the sight of his wife and other
children being carried off, kept replaying in his mind.
Taniega, who
now lives with her father and a brother, also said speaking with friends
allowed her to momentarily escape the torment.
She is also
taking pills to help her sleep, but it was in those times of rest that she most
clearly saw her lost husband and children.
"That's
my only connection to them. I see in my dreams our happy times," she said.
"Sometimes
my husband shows himself to me in a dream and I tell him: 'Oh you're still
alive.' He'll call me by my nickname and my children will call me: 'Mamma.'
They are laughing as they hug me."
