Revolutionizing Mental Health in Conflict Zones: Breaking the Stigma in Iraq

2023-11-17 09:00:10

Baghdad (AFP) – Raghad Qasim’s search for a psychotherapist in Baghdad reached a dead end, so she finally resorted to online consultations. In a country consumed by conflict, attention to mental health remains limited and stigma persists.

Published on: 11/17/2023 – 10:00 Last updated: 11/17/2023 – 09:58

5 minutes

In addition to concerns regarding societal perception, the numbers speak for themselves: There are “two mental health workers per 100,000 people” in a country of 43 million people, well below the global average, according to the World Health Organization.

Raghad, 34 years old, a women’s rights activist, believes that the mental health issue is “neglected” in Iraq by successive authorities, and therefore “society is not aware of it.”

Raghad adds that she reached “until her thirties” and began to realize the importance of the topic.

Raghad says, “I began to recognize the symptoms of depression” during the lockdown period associated with the Covid epidemic and the accompanying awareness campaigns regarding mental health on social media. She had lost her job.

After that, “I tried to find a doctor in Baghdad, because I like to have the person in front of me when I speak,” adding, “I asked a lot, and I know friends who saw psychiatrists in Baghdad, but he treated them with medication, and I do not like to take medications, as I may not need them.” “.

After losing hope of finding a psychotherapist in Baghdad, she turned to therapists via the Internet, including a Lebanese psychotherapist, with whom she began to discover the backgrounds of depression.

Raghad says, “I learned from her that the accumulations resulted from the war and the war period… and the fear and anxiety that we felt in the year 2003 and following that,” referring to the American invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein, and was followed by a bloody stage in Iraq’s history.

“stain”

The war that has been ongoing for more than forty days between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has left thousands dead, has revived psychological trauma, a condition that has become almost inherent to Iraqis.

Decades of conflicts, including violations committed by the Islamic State in recent years, have left profound psychological trauma and illness, and the need in the field of mental health remains very great, while the response and capabilities are far below expectations.

In Baghdad, Al-Rashad Teaching Hospital receives patients with chronic and serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. The hospital provides outpatient counseling services for people suffering from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the corridors of the hospital, which was founded in 1950, most of the patients walk quietly, with lost looks on their faces, including some who have been lying here for decades.

Just as there is a shortage of doctors and psychotherapists in general in Iraq, the main problem for the hospital lies in the shortage of “human power,” as its director, Firas Al-Kadhimi, says.

Al-Kazemi explained to Agence France-Presse, “We suffer from a scarcity of specialist doctors. We only have 11 psychiatrists, including me, the hospital director,” while the number of patients present is 1,425, two-thirds of whom are men and a third of whom are women, between the ages of 18 and 70 years.

He added, “I do not think there is a doctor in the world who can take care of 150 patients for 30 days a month and 365 days a year. This is a very huge number.”

In addition, only five psychological researchers work in the hospital as psychotherapists. They receive patients in a small room in which three of them take turns. This is a very small number when compared to regarding a hundred patients who visit the hospital daily.

The hospital includes a rehabilitation department in which patients practice hobbies such as theater therapy, music, and drawing.

In a room that included a platform and a number of red chairs, three elderly men from the hospital stood rehearsing a theatrical scene prepared for them by their coach, who was head of the rehabilitation department and had retired, yet he came to lend a helping hand.

“More acceptable”

Despite this, Al-Kadhimi has recently noticed “an increase in the number of visitors in counseling clinics.” He says that in the past, “it was considered embarrassing for a person to say, ‘I have a psychological problem,’” but the topic has begun to become “more acceptable” in society.

At the MSF center in Baghdad, alongside physical therapy services, psychotherapy services are provided to patients.

For psychiatrist Zainab Abdel Razzaq, who works at the center, the “stigma” of psychiatry exists in Iraq as well as in all parts of the world, but “in recent years it has begun to decline… People have become somewhat more accepting of medicine and psychotherapy.”

Among the visitors to the Doctors Without Borders center were those who did not know what psychotherapy was at all, such as 30-year-old Zainab Abdel Wahab.

The young woman suffers from polio and suffered a fracture in her pelvis following she fell, so she came to the center to receive physical therapy, but at the same time she learned regarding psychological treatment following going through many difficult experiences, such as the death of her mother and the illness of her father.

She says, “I had no idea regarding psychological treatment… I learned regarding it here. There is no psychological treatment in Iraq.”

The young woman continues, “I thought the experience was beautiful, and I noticed a radical change in my psychology.”

She added, “I realized here that it is not only the crazy person who needs psychological treatment… Society gets it wrong. He is just someone you talk to, you tell him regarding your day, and things that you may not want to share with close people.”

© 2023 AFP

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