'We built this from nothing': A country's bid for homegrown mental-health care
Dr. Sylvain Gomossa looks at the three students in front of him, curious how they’ll react to what he is about to say.
“We used to tie people up with big, heavy chains. Even right here in my office.”
The young men remain impassive. Dr. Gomossa looks disappointed.
“Anyway, it’s out of fashion now – we don’t do that anymore,” he says. “Shall we continue the tour?”
The students quietly trail the psychologist, jotting down notes in battered notebooks as he leads them through this ramshackle collection of buildings: the only specialized psychiatric and mental-health ward in the Central African Republic.
Covered in cracked and peeling paint, the men’s and women’s sections contain little more than rows of sagging beds and drooping mosquito nets. The main office is piled with stacks and stacks of yellowing, dusty files. Patients’ relatives fill the hospital: Some sit together on blankets
‘We were studying post-traumatic stress, and I was living it’‘You need to believe in yourself’
