Mental Health Crisis

Fadhil Abdullah lay in a hospital bed, pale and barely able to move or speak. The 29-year-old peshmerga, who had been living in Iran, had just been given electric shock for his depression, a condition that had left him unable to speak for long periods of time.

Abdullah had been at Sulaimaniyah Hospital for two weeks and, despite the harshness of his cure, is considered to be one of the lucky ones in a country where treatment options for the mentally ill are woefully inadequate.

In Sulaimaniyah, with a population of 640,000, the only place people can turn for mental health services is the local 32-bed hospital.

Patients pay 1,500 dinars (one US dollar) for each 24 hours they stay. Physicians decide who should be admitted, but because there are so few beds, some who need to be hospitalised must be treated outside.

Many patients and their families find it embarrassing to admit that a relation has a psychiatric problem, so many cases go unreported.

Experts, however, believe mental illness is on the rise, blaming the increasing violence, chaos and deterioration in living conditions. The breakdown of families as a result of the years of war has also contributed to the increase, as has the political situation, which has made people pessimistic about their future.

“As life gets complicated, the psychological state of human beings gets complicated, too,” said Salah Hasan, a therapist at Sulaimaniyah Hospital.

Jamal Omer Tofiq, a psychiatrist and neurologist at the Sulaimaniyah administration’s ministry of health, said 30 per cent of patients have a mental disorder.

“We should increase the number of physicians, therapists and social workers,” he said. “And there should be dissemination of information on mental illness through the media, schools and humanitarian organisations.”

Though progress is being made in increasing the services available to the mentally ill - the health ministry planning to build a treatment centre in Taslooja, west of Sulaimaniyah - conditions in existing facilities remain difficult.

Ghareeb Salih, 37, has spent a week in the psychiatric ward at Sulaimaniyah Hospital, where he claimed a medic switched the power off at night and threatened the patients when they said they would go to the media.

“He said ‘write what you want, I’ll shove my shoes in your mouth’,” said Salih, who is being treated with tranquilisers for his nerves but has been told he may need electric shock therapy.

He blames his wife for his present condition. “She called me bad names and drove me out of my mind,” he said.

Even if the services were available, not all Iraqis want to go to a doctor or therapist for treatment. A 34-year-old man decided to visit Imams and other religious figures to help him get through mental problems he thinks were brought on by his mother’s refusal to allow him to marry the woman of his choice.

With their help, he said he has been improving. “My mother is the most powerful authority at home and because she was the decision maker, I could not get married to whom I wanted,” he said. “After that I went mad. But now I treat people normally.”

Ismael Osman is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.