Many Merapi victims suffering from severe depression

Yogyakarta, NU Online
Some 282 victims of the eruption of Mount Merapi currently living in emergency shelters have been diagnosed to suffer from severe depression that need a long time to treat medically, a health official has said.

"The mental disorders experienced by those disaster refugees include depression, psychosis and insomnia," said Bondan Agus Suryanto, head of Yogyakarta province`s health office, on Saturday.<<>br />
On the average, he added, each patient of the natural disaster will need at least 1,000 visits, or over the next three months. For this, the health office has organized special nurse trainings for conducting the visits, accompanied by psychiatrists and psychologists.

The nurses and their accompanying psychiatrists and psychologists will submit progress reports on the patients they oversee so that further methods of treatment can be administered for patient with more severe disorders, he said.

In addition to treatments of mental disorder patients, the health office has launched a sanitary program by spraying disinfectants in the devastated locations. Manual sanitary equipments are also to be distributed such as hoes and spades.

In order that giving information on water and air qualities, Yogyakarta health office has been cooperating with related institutions so that the people in the affected areas know what to do and avoid.

"Based in our routine monitoring from Sleman to areas around Merapi, we got the results that so far water quality in those regions is still good enough," Suryanto said.

The 3,000-meter volcano, located almost amid Central Java, had been erupted starting from October 26 up to November 8, 2010, causing direct and indirect at least 275 deaths and displacing over 350,000 people. (dar)