Five Years After Deadly Quake, Haiti Still Has No Mental Health System

Reuters (1/10, Moloney) reports on the state of mental healthcare in Haiti five years after a devastating earthquake that killed 200,000. As it was before the Jan. 12, 2010 quake, the country still has no mental health system. There are only 10 psychiatrists in the impoverished Caribbean nation to serve a population of some 10 million, and most people with serious mental illnesses are not receiving any mental healthcare whatsoever. Because so many Haitians believe that mental illness is a form of demonic possession, they turn to voodoo priests for treatment.

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— “Voodoo priests, doctors on frontline of Haiti’s mental healthcare,” Anastasia Moloney, Reuters, January 9, 2015.

Posted in In The News.