Libya: Mental health support needed after Storm Daniel destroys Derna

What about the healthcare system in Derna? Has Doctors Without Borders already been supporting health structures?

In terms of healthcare, the hospital system is not overwhelmed. There has been only a limited increase in the number of patients related to the disaster itself. The hospital system is coping well despite the situation and field hospitals set up by foreign governments, were operational a few days after the storm.

Primary healthcare structures have been particularly impacted by the disaster: some primary healthcare centers have been destroyed by the floods, and many medical and paramedical staff have either died in the flooding or are now mourning relatives or colleagues among the victims. Some primary healthcare centers are supported by many volunteers who came from all over Libya to help.

Two weeks in, we can see that a lot of health personnel are still missing or in the process of mourning, and the volunteers who came to help in the first days are starting to leave.

Since September 20, Médecins Sans Frontières started supporting two primary health care centers. To date, our doctors have already conducted 537 consultations in Embokh and Salem Sassi Primary Health Care Centers, and Oum Al Qura school shelter.

The consultations were mainly for non-communicable diseases (diabetes, hypertension) for adults and respiratory infections and diarrhea for children. Many patients seen by our doctors were still in shock, some showing signs of psychological trauma.

Some children would refuse to drink water fear of drowning. Patients complained of flashbacks, of being unable to sleep between 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m —the precise time the deadly wave engulfed the city in the dark of night on 10 September.

What kind of support can Doctors Without Borders bring to these invisible wounds?

Our team of psychologists has been able to start providing mental health services to two priority groups among the population of Derna: those who have lost everything and are now living in temporary shelters; and medical or paramedical staff and volunteers working in health care facilities.

Indeed, people in the latter group have sometimes lost relatives, colleagues, and friends, and on top of that, they are working on the frontlines, providing care to those who survived or even helping to evacuate dead bodies, which can be a traumatic experience for volunteers.

In that context, we have been putting all our efforts toward our mental health activities, including individual consultations and focus groups in shelters and in the two primary healthcare centers that we are supporting. We are planning to scale up our activities to offer mental health support to anyone who needs it.

Are our teams facing challenges?

While Doctors Without Borders’s staff could arrive in Derna only three days after the disaster, flying from western Libya where Doctors Without Borders runs regular projects, our action deployment, however, remains limited by the issuance of visas for the international staff, which can sometimes be a long process and could limit our capacity to scale up our activities.

However, our collaboration with the authorities and with locally hired teams has been very good. We'll see in the coming days how the structures are going to be organized and review our setup according to the needs and our added value.