BAGHDAD: Every time Iraqi psychiatrist Shaalan Jauda receives a threatening text message on his mobile phone, he gets another glimpse of the terror ravaging his patients’ minds.

“We will behead you.” “Five bullets will kill you.” “You will suffer the same fate as your colleagues.”

As he reads off the threats, Jauda, one of Iraq’s leading psychiatrists, shakes his head in disbelief. He can’t understand why anyone would want to kill him, a doctor dedicated to helping people deal with the agony of mental illness.

But this is Iraq, where so much of the bloodshed of the past five years makes so little sense either to the victims or those trying to treat them. That is what Jauda tries gently to explain to traumatised patients who have been shot, bombed or beaten into physical and mental breakdown.

Treating a growing number of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) cases let alone complex conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is hard enough without looking over his shoulder every time he leaves home or work.

Peace of mind is hard to come by in Iraq, both for the few psychiatrists who have not fled after their colleagues were killed, and for their patients. Scores of doctors and academics have been targeted by unknown gunmen seeking to spread fear and chaos in a multi-sided conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Jauda had big plans when he became director of Baghdad’s Ibn Rushud psychiatric hospital.

He hoped to introduce a modern management style, re-organise filing systems, break new ground in trauma research. But Iraq’s mayhem shattered his dreams.

His hospital’s wards are dreary and bare. There is a shortage of drugs to fight psychosis and depression. Doctors have to rely on an electroshock machine made in the 1970s to treat the most severe cases.

Instead of finding tranquillity, the mentally fragile are reminded of dangers just beyond the gates whenever they see security guards patrolling the area.

“We just don’t have the money,” said Jauda, sitting in his simple, dark office shuffling through folders. He laments the decline of his profession since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Iraq once boasted some of the best medical facilities in the Arab world. Now Jauda estimates there are barely 80 psychiatrists left for its estimated 27 million people.

Iraqis who are admitted to the hospital should consider themselves lucky.

Many people whose illnesses have been made worse by roadside bombs, or kidnappings of relatives or friends, never reach Ibn Rushud in central Baghdad. Only 20 of the 74 beds are occupied.

“We can help people in Baghdad,” said Jauda, his face worn from the strain, making him look far older than his 43 years.

“But fewer and fewer patients can come because they are too scared of travelling to Baghdad. They are scared of being killed on the roads.”—Reuters