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| November 7, 2005 | Monday | Shawwal 4, 1426 |
Balakot survivors remain in trauma
PESHAWAR, Nov 6: Most of the earthquake survivors, especially children, are suffering from psychological disorders in Balakot and adjoining villages and they immediately need trauma centres for early recovery.
This was stated by Dr Fawad Khan, Diplomat American Board of Psychiatry, who runs the Shafiq Psychiatric Clinic in Peshawar, while talking to Dawn by telephone from Balakot on Sunday.
Leading a 14-member team of doctors and philanthropists, who have set up a medical camp, Dr Fawad said that they provided treatment to about 100 patients on Sunday while many more would come on Monday as it was the first clinic for psychiatric patients in the area.
Most patients were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because they were still experiencing aftershocks in the area since its devastation by the Oct 8 quake, he added.
The Balakot survivors are not only physically injured but also psychologically hurt, he said.
Dr Fawad urged the government and international NGOs dealing in health matters to immediately establish trauma centres in the quake zone to help people live a normal life.
The government should set up schools to help children start their routine otherwise they would continue to live under constant stress, which would make them psychiatric patients, he said.
“They don’t have proper shelter, food and other daily-use stuff and continued aftershocks in the region have made them psychiatric patients,” said Prof Ehtisham, a teacher at the Mine Department, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.
Prof Ehtisham said that most of the people were still living under constant fear of earthquake, which had changed their behaviour. Some of the people visiting the medical camp told doctors that their women and children were not behaving like normal people. Many of them screamed at night without cause, they said.
He added that the camp in Balakot and its adjoining villages would remain for a week. On Monday, two more doctors, Dr Mian Iftikhar and Dr Shehzad, would join the doctors’ team in the area.
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