IRAQ: Women afraid to seek healthcare in south

Photo: IRIN

Very few women are seeking help for mental illness at the General al-Fayha

BASRA, 5 April 2004 (IRIN) - One year after the US-led war to topple Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein, lack of security continues to prevent progress in health care, particularly among women too scared to leave their homes. In a January poll by the Institute for Civil Society Studies, an Iraqi non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Baghdad, 67 percent of residents in the southern city of Basra said they felt unsafe in their neighbourhoods, compared with 48 percent in Baghdad. The problem is particularly acute for women in the Shi'ite-majority city of Basra, which was on the frontline during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war. Many women lost their husbands and they were forced to work and raise their children with the absence of their partners. Maha al-Salim, a professor at the University of Basra and head of the psychiatrist care centre at the university told IRIN that although the latest war left people shocked and prone to psychological trauma, the patient count was low. "I haven't received many patients this year at the centre, especially women. The security situation made them go out less, and even less if they needed medical help," she said, adding that women usually suffer more during wars. "They are under increasing pressure," she maintained. In a recent case handled by al-Salim, a woman, working because her husband's income was low, returned home late one day, so her husband started beating her. "It took us a while to treat her from that traumatic shock afterwards as all she was doing was trying to help the family get a better income," she explained. Nearly 50 percent of 2,000 households in southern Iraq reported one or more abuses among themselves or household members, including killings, torture or beatings, according to a study released recently by the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an NGO promoting health by protecting human rights. The study also highlights the high number of women's health needs in southern Iraq that still need to be addressed. "Reconstructing the healthcare system of Iraq will require planning, funding, and implementation of primary care needs with a specific focus on women's health," said Dr Lynn Amowitz, PHR Senior Medical Researcher, who conducted the study with an Iraqi team of researchers last summer. According to Amowitz, "primary care should include immunisation campaigns, disease surveillance and treatment initiatives, community-based maternal child health services and community health education, as well as a strong culturally appropriate mental health component in order to address the widespread effects of trauma in Iraq." The majority of households interviewed also did not allow freedom of movement for women, with restrictions on women's rights, which also had adverse health consequences for women and girls as they were unable to access health services or advocate for their needs. "Women suffered a lot during the continuous years of war, especially here in Basra during the Iraq-Iran war, then the sanctions, and the latest war," Mansour Attiya, a psychiatrist at the General al-Fayha hospital, told IRIN. He added that people who come to the hospital are those who have severe mental disorders and are in need of medicine. "But those who have social stigma or suffer from neurotic disorders due to worry or depression don't bother to come and they are more concerned with the security situation," he said. Post-traumatic war experience, instead, had made people turn to their family and religion in order to protect themselves, Mansour added.