Mexican psychiatrists seek psychological treatment in US
By IANSTuesday, September 28, 2010
Mexico City, Sep 29 (IANS/EFE) The recent wave of extortion and kidnappings in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital, has forced hundreds of psychiatrists to cross the border to the US to receive psychological treatment.
The situation in Ciudad Juarez has reached the point where “the doctors and psychiatrists themselves are here trying to get help,” psychologist Carlos Perlasca, who works in El Paso, Texas, told EFE.
“The psychologists themselves are going to get treatment because they have been asked for a payment or have even been kidnapped already,” Perlasca said.
A report on crime in Ciudad Juarez found that more than 40 businesses have been burned for failing to pay protection money and at least 300 others have shut their doors since 2008 due to fear of kidnappings and extortion.
About 20 doctors suffering from “chronic anxiety” are undergoing treatment, Perlasca said.
Another mental health specialist who was kidnapped in 2008 said that once a doctor experiences “such a fearful situation”, he decides to go to El Paso even though the laws in Texas “are very strict” and they cannot “go back to work”.
“I know doctors who when they are unable to find work, and because they have so much anxiety due to the situation, come here to get treatment,” the doctor said on condition of anonymity.
Doctors in Ciudad Juarez agree that all of the border city’s residents are technically suffering from chronic anxiety.
According to media reports, more than 2,000 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez since January.
Both Perlasca and the other doctor said they had “more than 30 children” under treatment for the loss of one or both parents, or another close relative.
The number of orphans in Ciudad Juarez has risen to nearly 10,000, or 1.2 percent of the city’s population, in recent years due to the wave of drug-related violence, official figures show.
Ciudad Juarez has been the most violent city in Mexico since 2008, when the murder rate took off in the border city due to a war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels for control of smuggling routes into the US.
–IANS/EFE
