PESHAWAR, Dec 6: The provincial health department is planning to launch an action plan on mental health in the quake-stricken areas of the province. “We are going to appoint a trained psychiatrist, a psychologist and social worker in each of the five quake-affected districts for 14 days,” said a health official.

The doctors would be sent from the psychiatry departments of Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Abbottabad’s Ayub Teaching Hospital.

Health officials say that quake survivors are prone to mental disorders as most of them have lost their near and dear ones in the Oct 8 earthquake.

The experts will provide training to volunteers, doctors, nurses and paramedics to enable them to properly handle patients suffering from mental traumas.

A medium-term plan will be implemented immediately during the course of which it would become mandatory for doctors and health workers in government-run facilities to undergo two weeks training.

Officials said training will be imparted to primary health personnel in batches of 10-15 persons. The LRH’s psychiatry department has given similar training to Afghan doctors in the past.

In order to make this exercise a regular feature in these areas, extensive training has been planned for 30 health workers so they could become master trainers and provide further training to health workers and volunteers.

“An extensive training for 200-300 workers has also been planned for sensitization and identification of the psychiatry morbidity associated with the disaster,” said a psychiatrist.

He said that training of social workers and psychologists for assessment of children and foster parents for adoption was also part of the programme.

“We need to translate and validate questionnaires, which can be used for screening patients for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other major psychiatric disorders by the general health care providers in these areas,” he added.

He said a media campaign would also be launched in order to raise awareness about public health problems in the areas. A simple message will be put across: “Psychological consequences of the disaster are treatable” so that people get confidence.

The official said the government is already in the process of rehabilitation of damaged psychiatric health facilities at Ayub Teaching Hospital and other healthcare outlets.

Similarly, he said, provision of basic psychotropic and anti-epileptic drugs in the quake-hit districts is also part of the plan.

“We also need to conduct basic epidemiological studies on the concept of PSTD, its relevance in our culture, phenomenology and its correlations,” the official added.

He said it was all the more possible that the quake’s survivors would develop problems when they recall the cataclysmic event. The condition of the patients can turn worse if they are not provided immediate medical treatment.

“The plan also includes a strategy to train those involved in the distribution of relief good among the people,” he said, adding that psychiatrists and psychologists would deliver lectures to inform them to distribute aid to people in a respectable way.

“The self-esteem of aid recipients takes a battering when they are made to stand in queues and some of these people could become professional beggars in future,” he pointed out. That’s why it is important to train health workers and volunteers on how to handle quake victims and save them from mental illnesses.