|
Doc’s Diary
Dr. Fred Kigozi
On the fateful Monday night, shocking news circulated round
with the same ferocity like the fire which within an hour
or so had mercilessly engulfed the Budo Junior School girls’
dormitories resulting into the death of innocent young ones
and destruction of property.
The psychological pain among survivors, parents and any
sane human being cannot be measured by any scale of measurements
in my view. Imagine what could be going on within the pupils’
minds, especially those who lost their friends, some of
whom they had just shared with the prep, a pen, some eats
or lots of fun!
What about the parents who innocently had taken their children
to one of the premier primary boarding schools in search
of a better future for them yet many of these will never
be seen again.
Can these memories ever be erased out of their minds? Perhaps
feeling guilty that they wished they had not taken their
little loved ones to a boarding school after all. Feelings
of shame, self blame, cannot be avoided. The girls who survived
are experiencing nightmares.
Sadly, the above are the natural outcome and experiences
of such a cruel traumatic event, not limited to a blazing
inferno like the one at Budo, but could result from any
savage action such as that of Kony and his henchmen in northern
Uganda, a destructive natural disaster like the Tsunami,
typhoons, road traffic accidents, floods as recently experienced
in eastern Uganda with loss of lives and from gruesome murders
including the now rampant child sacrifice.
There is need for everyone to understand and appreciate
the emotional reactions associated with such traumatic events;
more so to the victims, so as to prevent immediate or long-term
mental health problems.
It should be noted that the individual survivors, their
close relatives, even the mere observers and ironically
many of the traumatising perpetrators, are all prone to
developing these psychological reactions or stress.
People who have been traumatised report recurrent recollection
of the events which do not go away easily, distressing dreams
of the events, feelings as if the incident was occurring
all over again. When such individuals are exposed to events
that symbolise or resemble the traumatic event they experienced,
they react with intense psychological distress.
There may be a deliberate effort to avoid things that remind
the individual about trauma. Indeed some children at Budo
may demand not to be returned to the school. Others react
negatively to many activities including those which used
to interest them or many feel insecure and wish to be around
others for support all the time.
Traumatised individuals can present with difficulty in
falling or staying asleep, and those around them report
increasing actions of irritability, outbursts of anger or
exaggerated responses to any type of threat.
Fortunately, there is now overwhelming evidence that if
appropriate interventions such as counselling and where
overt symptoms are detected early, help is offered, the
people affected can get out of it very quickly and continue
with normal life.
On the other hand, if no intervention or professional help
is offered, the effects of trauma can become chronic and
may interfere with normal functioning, sometimes resulting
into a severe mental illness such as depression or post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).
Indeed, it is my view that many of the pupils of Budo Junior
School will require some sort of professional counselling
or psychological help. A few may require more expert care
from clinical psychologists or expert psychiatrists who
are now available at Mulago and Butabika Hospitals.
|
