PESHAWAR, March 15: Authorities in the Frontier province have not paid sufficient attention to the mental health of quake survivors who have experienced deep trauma over loss of relatives in last October’s earthquake, mental health experts said on Wednesday.

“Grief and sorrow do not easily subside. The survivors are still reeling from emotional trauma. They need psychiatrists and psychologists to help them get through this trauma,” said Dr Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a local psychiatrist.

“Quake survivors need love, kindness and affection,” he told the Health Promotion Society at a function held on Wednesday to evaluate the mental sufferings of people in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Dr Fawad Khan said that as a psychiatrist he knew how hard it was for quake victims to recover.

Dr Fawad pointed out that relief work required organisational structure and communication to correctly perform tasks.

“The people are now fast becoming beggars, because of their reliance on relief goods,”, he said.

He said efforts were under way to establish health facilities for the rehabilitation of the people who had undergone severe mental trauma.

Another psychiatrist Dr Mohammad Farooq Khan was of the view that society as a whole was responsible for the ill state of affairs.

“The violent reaction of people to blasphemous cartoons is a tell-tale example of their distress,” he said, adding that such violence amounted to the worse kind of blasphemy than what had been committed by the cartoonists.

Dr Mohammad Shafique said the government, politicians and doctors were of little help to people shattered by natural calamity. The problem, he said, was deep-rooted and said there was no lecture on ethics for medical students.