War complicates psychiatric treatment for traumatized Iraqis

In a nation that used to have some of the most sophisticated medical equipment and best-trained doctors in the Middle East, Iraqi physicians find themselves having to use antiquated techniques with outdated supplies to care for the increasing number of psychologically-scarred victims of the war, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Doctors like Amir Hussain, who works at the Ibn Rushid psychiatric hospital in central Baghdad, experience the frustration of not only having more patients than his facility can handle, but of also seeing patients whose conditions have relapsed and worsened because of the mayhem that continues to engulf the nation.

There is no time for people to recover, Dr. Hussain says. And once they do “there is a new stress, grief after grief, losses after losses, violence after violence.”

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