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| October 30, 2005 | Sunday | Ramzan 25, 1426 |
Psychiatrists required in affected areas
LAHORE, Oct 29: More and more psychologists and psychiatrists are required to go to the quake-hit areas and offer counselling services to the victims in various rehabilitation camps to help them recover from trauma.
Similarly, veterinary surgeons and doctors are urgently required in those areas to treat the livestock, which is also suffering from multiple fractures and different diseases.
These suggestions have been proposed by Jahandad Society for Community Development president Prof Yasmin Rashid while speaking to Dawn here on Saturday. The JSCD has itself adopted a tent village in Hassa Degree College for Boys, about seven miles from Balakot.
Initially, some 100 tents were established by the army in the Hassa tent village, but afterwards the society took over the responsibility of rehabilitation of around 2,480 homeless people and raised 150 additional winterized tents for six to eight months.
Prof Rashid said some 150 more tents would be raised at the tent village within a few days to accommodate and rehabilitate 3,500 victims. She said these homeless people included 550 children.
In the first phase of this rehabilitation project, the homeless people were being provided with blankets, quilts, plastic floor and roof sheets and a variety of household utensils.
She said the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association Hospital, established in the tent village vicinity, was providing its services while the Islamic Relief was providing food to the Hassa tent village residents and would continue to do so till Eidul Fitr. Afterwards, she said, the JSCD would provide food to all tent village residents for six to eight months.
Prof Rashid said the homeless living in tent villages were suffering from a great psychological trauma and were in great need of counselling. “Death has become so familiar to the survivors that people, including children, can be found talking casually about the death toll of different families or particular persons,” she said.
She stressed that psychologists and psychiatrists should volunteer and go to the quake-hit areas to help calm the survivors, otherwise they might continue to suffer mental agony for the rest of their lives. She also said the child psychologists should also help little survivors.
Answering a question, she said there were many people camping near their damaged houses to ensure that no body took away their life-long savings buried under the debris. “This is the reason that most people also want that they should be offered medical treatment near their houses instead of taking them to some urban cities,” she said.
Answering another question, Prof Rashid said the JSCD would also do sustainable relief work by helping its tent village inhabitants to get at least initial stock of items to revive their businesses.
Citing an example, she said, a survivor, who had lost his shop following the earthquake, would be helped to reconstruct his shop and get a basic stock of items for sale. Similarly, a shepherd would be provided a basic stock of cattle to revive his business. She said the society would also help in rebuilding the damaged Hassa Degree College for Boys.
Prof Rashid said the JSCD had requested Unicef and Oxfam to build toilets and proper water supply system. Unicef was also establishing a school and the staff was being hired from those educated residents of the tent village. —- MANSOOR MALIK
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