Survivors need mental help: experts
- Source: Global Times
- [02:13 May 07 2010]
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By Huang Jingjing
While there are reasons to admire the post-quake reconstruction in Sichuan Province, some mental health experts have warned that there should be a similar drive to help survivors recuperate mentally.
"We have obtained remarkable progress in reconstruction work," Ji Jinshan, president of the Sichuan Post-quake Reconstruction Promotion Commission, said Wednesday.
Two-thirds of the housing projects should be completed this year, Li added.
Such progress is lacking when it comes to helping people adjust psychologically. And the consequences have been apparent.
Some survivors who lost loved ones have committed suicide after the quake.
Feng Xiang, 33, a government official from Beichuan who lost his 8-year-old son in the quake, killed himself in April 2009.
After the quake, about 4 percent of the 20 million people who experienced the devastation suffered from psychological turmoil, but fewer than 10 percent voluntarily went to see a counselor, China News Service reported Thursday.
"Traditional people think that failing mentally is a shame. So when the illness falls, they would cover it up as insomnia and refuse to accept treatment," Zhang Wei, vice president of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, was quoted as say-ing.
Such lack of awareness makes it harder for them to put the trauma behind them.
Zhang cited one victim who visited him last April. The 28-year-old woman witnessed her husband being crushed by huge rocks.
The scene repeatedly flashes through her mind and it has had a great impact on her daily life.
"This is in fact an illness medically known as a flashback, which will disable pa-tients' social abilities. However, many people take it as normal," he said.
Wu Songbai, 39, a primary art teacher from the Aba (Ngawa) Tibetan and Qiang Autono-mous Prefecture, agreed.
Since the quake, he found it was easier for him to get irritated or upset.
"It is hard for ordinary people to realize whether they are mentally ill and need treatment," he told the Global Times Thursday, adding that there is a counseling station near the school, but few people use the service.
Poorly qualified counseling services after the quake left a bad taste among some residents.
"Soon after the quake, many volunteers flooded the area. Various surveys were done with residents, but then the survey takers left and cared little about the results," said Zhang Lijun, a counselor at a health center in Beichuan county.
"This increase distrust of the residents about counseling has added an obstacle to our work," Zhang said.
Still, some victims said most survivors have found a new and healthy life.
"We are lucky to survive. I need to treasure life. We ought to and have to forget sorrows and learn to live on happily," said a 40-year-old man from Beichuan who lost nearly 20 relatives in the quake.
He said his nephew, who lost her mother, got help to study from a man in Taiwan.
His cousins, who lost their spouses in the quake, are now remarried.
"The future is beautiful as long as we believe it," he said.
