Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) need specialized and competent care at mental health centers to get back on their feet (why the federal refugee resettlement program doesn’t mandate mental health screening for refugees makes little sense to me). A specialist at a center in Kent, in Washington state, has found that focusing on a patient’s physical symptoms is useful in helping refugee clients. An article at KUOW tells the story of an Iraqi refugee struggling to survive with PTSD (he didn’t get a proper referral until he tried to jump off a roof):
The Kuba family lives in a small ground–floor apartment in Kent…
…But there’s a lot more space here than they had a few weeks ago, when they were living in their car.
Amer Kuba: “I leave my home. And all my stuff in the street cause I don’t have money for truck.”
This is Amer Kuba. He is a refugee from Iraq. At his first apartment, rent was $735. But he only got $560 in refugee cash assistance. It caught up with him, and he was evicted.
Kuba: “I take just my clothes and I sleep in my car almost three month. I drive in night, and my family sleep in car.”
…Amer, his pregnant wife and their young son came to Seattle in April 2010.
Amer says he didn’t leave the house for the first six months. He was afraid al–Qaida would find him here.
Kuba: “And I have psychological problem. And I can’t speak with anybody and confuse all the time and I still inside my house, I don’t go outside because I afraid.”…
…Beth Farmer runs the International Counseling Service, a community mental health center. Almost all of her clientele are refugees from Africa, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
Farmer: “If you are already having post–traumatic stress disorder symptoms, you are really poised to fall through the cracks.”
That’s because there is no standardized way to make sure refugees with severe mental health problems are funneled into treatment as soon as they arrive.
Amer didn’t get sent to Beth’s clinic until he attempted suicide. He tried to jump off the roof of the Department of Social and Health Services building in Downtown Seattle.
Overall, Beth says refugees are 10 times more likely to have PTSD than the general population. But it can be hard to get patients like Amer into treatment.
Many refugees with PTSD share his fear of going outside. And that’s only amplified by how hard it can be to find your way around a new city, especially if you don’t have a car or speak the language.
Even the idea of mental health treatment can be scary.
Farmer: “For a long time, people didn’t think that they could address mental health issues because the stigma in the refugee community was so high.”
Getting counseling or psychiatric treatment might be seen as selfish or wimpy, or even dangerous. For some refugees, mental hospitals are a place where political dissidents are sent.
Beth has found that focusing on physical symptoms gets the best results. She starts by asking a patient how they’re sleeping… Read more here
