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Island doctors, back from Sri Lanka, say physicians are trying to stop suicides in areas wrecked by tsunami

Friday, February 11, 2005
By LISA SCHNEIDER
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

Unable to cope with the pain of losing her three children to 30-foot-high tsunami waves, one Sri Lankan mother intended to kill herself.

But Dr. Rajam Theventhiran was able to admit the woman -- who was two months' pregnant -- to a hospital before she was able to carry out her plan. "I always believe every life is worth living," said Dr. Theventhiran, a Staten Island psychiatrist who recently returned from a two-week trip to Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions. "But when I spoke to this mother, I felt helpless."

While health officials initially worried about cholera epidemics and other ailments following the disaster in Southeast Asia, doctors now find themselves trying to ward off suicide in communities plagued by severe emotional distress.

In mid-January, Dr. Theventhiran and her husband, Dr. Shan Theventhiran, an anesthesiologist at Staten Island University Hospital, traveled to Sri Lanka to provide medical attention to the region. What the Theventhirans found were traumatized human beings -- some showing no emotion and others walking around weeping, while still others refused to eat or sleep, mired by an insurmountable guilt. Some were frightened by flashbacks of massive waves and traumatized by images of bodies strewn naked across the beach like driftwood.

"The losses were really tremendous," Dr. Rajam Theventhiran said. One woman lost six of her children. Another was only able to hold onto two of her three children during the tsunami and had to decide which one to let go.

A stigma surrounding mental health services has prevented many Sri Lankans from seeking help, Dr. Rajam Theventhiran said. So therapists are turning to communities to learn about which residents have suffered the greatest losses and then approach them, she said. Young children don't comprehend the tragedy in the same way as adults, and often don't show the same signs of acute stress disorder as their parents, Dr. Rajam Theventhiran said. But in later months, they may feel the emotional effects more strongly.

Meanwhile, the northern and eastern areas visited by the Theventhirans -- namely the cities of Kilinochi and Mullaitivu -- have already experienced years of civil war, which has only added to the residents' trauma. Dr. Rajam Theventhiran said she is trying to organize Sri Lankan psychiatrists in Canada and the United States to provide continuous mental health care to the region.

"We have to help them psychologically or they won't be able to take care of the rest of the children," she said.