Every fourth Ukrainian is at risk of severe mental disorders due to the Russian war – WHO
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A quarter of Ukrainians may develop serious mental disorders after almost a year of full-scale war with Russia, said special adviser of the World Health Organization Michel Kazachkin. The French doctor and diplomat said that Russia’s war in Ukraine not only led to a shortage of medical supplies and medical personnel, but also created a serious threat to mental health. Kazachkin recently visited Dnipro and said that he saw dozens of servicemen hospitalized with “acute and tragic anxiety, depression and mental disorders.” “Mental health is becoming the main health care problem in Ukraine,” said the doctor. “The war and its consequences have led to an increase in the use of permitted and prohibited psychoactive substances.” Kazachkin also expects the health care crisis to spread to other countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, whose economies are closely linked to Russia’s, which is experiencing an economic downturn due to Western sanctions for aggression against Ukraine. Last year, the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, during her address at the session of the World Health Assembly, said that the consequences of Russian full-scale aggression on the mental health of Ukrainians could last for years and decades. In particular, children can experience the acute trauma of war. A petition has already been registered on the website of the President of Ukraine to grant minors the status of “children of war” so that they can receive a number of state social guarantees. At the same time, as the High Commissioner of the United Nations Office for Refugees stated, Russia violates the “fundamental principles” of protecting the rights of children during the war by issuing Russian passports to Ukrainian children and giving them up for adoption. Also, one of the serious problems after the end of the war in Ukraine may be the increase in cases of domestic violence by the demobilized. But some experts in Ukraine previously told Voice of America that Ukrainians have the opportunity to overcome collective psychological trauma so that it does not turn into conditional collective post-traumatic stress disorder, in particular thanks to working with specialists. The article uses Reuters materials
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