For Humanitarian Workers, Mental Health Needs Are Often Overlooked

July 19, 2017It ' s time to take mental well-being during complex emergencies seriously.In my family there was always a strong culture of suffering in silence. We were encouraged as children to ignore small injuries and illnesses, and to soldier on without complaint.I only realized the full extent of this embedded behavior when my elderly mother dislocated her shoulder and refused to go to the hospital for 24 hours, somehow believing that it would get better on its own.It has always been difficult to shake off this deeply ingrained sense that to ask for help is somehow weak. When, in a one year period, my son had a serious accident, my mother had a stroke, and I was diagnosed with cancer, it took me six months to realize that I needed to find a counsellor to help me through the mental effects of that awful year.  If we cannot own up to stress and anxiety, it is little wonder that more serious mental health illness is so often hidden.  There is a little of the stoic in many of us, and research has shown that this tendency is particularly strong in humanitarian health workers. Sometimes there is a sense that because humanitarian work may involve rescue or bringing relief, the workers are “heroes” who need no comfort themselves. Indeed, the term “health worker heroes” has been used to describe the “inspiring health workers who make health care possible”.  “From risking their lives to quell an Ebola outbreak in Guinea or to stamp out polio in Pakistan to deliveri...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news