Survivors suffer from mental trauma
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A park is flooded in Zhouqu county. |
Mi later found out that the names Sun kept repeating belonged to four classmates she had chatted and had fun with the afternoon before the landslide. Those four have all been confirmed dead.
"Sun now has suicidal thoughts because it all happened so quickly for her. She couldn't accept that her friends have passed away. She doesn't know how to deal with it," Mi said. "Our main task is to give survivors hope to move on, which is easy to say and so difficult to achieve after such a horrible event."
After several hours of counseling, Sun's psychological condition was still not stable but she at least was willing to talk.
"We concentrate more on helping people who have a history of mental illness and those who had mood swings after the landslide," Mi said. "We will closely monitor people with suicidal thoughts like Sun."
Mi and his team members also have been busy training 25 local volunteers the basics of psychological treatment methods because the survivors' mental health will be a long-term job.
"We really need fully trained professionals here. Many volunteers are full of great enthusiasm, but they lack basic psychological treatment experience and skills relevant for such a major disaster. Also, they cannot commit themselves to providing long-term service. They might cause more hurt than help for some survivors," Mi added.
Zhang Guoxin, vice-director of the emergency office of the Health Ministry, promised at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday to provide landslide victims with timely mental care.
In 2002 the Ministry of Health began mandating that local governments should provide mental health care for victims after large-scale disasters. The ministry also suggests that psychological first aid should be available for 50 percent of the victims.
