Medical School physician aids tsunami victims

A faculty physician at the SIU School of Medicine was one of two American psychiatrists invited this spring to southeast Asia to provide assistance in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami.

Dr. Jagannathan Srinivasaraghavan, professor and chief of community and public psychiatry at SIU School of Medicine and medical director of the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna, was asked to provide training to identify post-traumatic stress and provide recommendations for continuing psychiatric care of tsunami survivors.

Srinivasaraghavan, known as Dr. Van, represented the American Psychiatric Association in April at the Asian Pacific Congress on Disaster Mitigation in Chennai, India. After the conference, he traveled to the surrounding areas of Chennai and spent several days in Batticaloa and the Ampara district of Sri Lanka, some of the areas most severely affected by the tsunami.

Because he speaks Tamil, the native language of that area, Dr. Van was able to communicate effectively to health care providers and victims. He consulted with area psychiatrists and provided training to volunteer counselors so they can help the victims who have psycho-social problems, especially in identifying those at highest risk of post-traumatic stress and those with suicidal tendencies.

"In India alone, more than ten thousand lives were lost and innumerable families suffered physical and emotional trauma and property damage. Area physicians, psychiatrists and the government did a remarkable job of providing crisis intervention, treating physical trauma and disposing of the dead swiftly to prevent epidemics of infectious diseases and providing temporary shelter," said Dr. Van.

However, he found that there is a shortage of mental health personnel to deal with the psychological effects of such a major disaster. "There was less than five thousand psychiatrists in India for a population of over a billion and even fewer mental health professionals in the country," he added.

During his visits to hospitals and temporary relief shelters, he talked to many survivors. Thousands of people were residing in the many shelters set up in schools and other public buildings. "There were many heart-wrenching stories of victims who had lost everything -- family members, homes and businesses. Shopkeepers lost their entire inventories and fisherman lost their fishing boats and nets, leaving them with no source of income," said Dr. Van.

He was amazed at the resiliency of many of the victims and noted that some are reasonably well adjusted, but others are suffering and have developed psycho-social problems from the post-traumatic stress. "Many of them are unable to sleep, alcohol dependency is a problem for a number of the survivors, and most of them live in fear that the tsunami will come again," he said.

Dr. Van recalls one family who lost 22 members. Other survivors included a father who lost all five of his children and developed alcohol dependency as well as a 15-year-old girl who lost both her parents, causing her to become severely depressed and noncommunicative.

In July, Dr. Van returns to Sri Lanka to serve as chair of the USA chapter of the South Asian Forum, a meeting to plan the continuing efforts for helping the South Asian countries overcome the effects of the tsunami. He says this experience has reinforced his knowledge of how fortunate this country is to have such high-quality medical care, compared to other parts of the world that are not so fortunate. It also has strengthened his resolve to help his native southeast Asian region.