Psychiatrirst back from Iraq: "I met mothers unable to cope with their children’s pain and emotions." (ENG)

Joëlle Vernet is a psychiatrist. Joëlle was tasked with setting up mental health consultations in the hospital in Qayyarah south of Mosul.

MSF192922

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Psychiatrist back from Iraq: "I met mothers unable to cope with their children’s pain and emotions." (INT)

De retour d'Irak : « J’ai rencontré des mères qui ne pouvaient plus faire face aux troubles de leurs enfants. » (FR)

Subt. French

Psychiatrirst back from Iraq: "I met mothers unable to cope with their children’s pain and emotions." (DE)

Subt. German

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Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF192922

Date taken / Date Recorded 14/04/2017 12:00 AM

Country Iraq

Commissioning section MSF-FRANCE

Photographer / videographer / producer Armelle Loiseau

Usage Rights (MSF) Advertising Campaign, External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★★ (C)

Video format h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 1m45s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 179.47 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist A voice from the field
Joëlle Vernet is a psychiatrist. Joëlle was tasked with setting up mental health consultations in the hospital in Qayyarah south of Mosul.
People have endured extremely tough situations (…) and they still don’t feel at all safe, particularly as the bombing hasn’t stopped and there are soldiers and the sound of gunfire everywhere. (…) They live in fear, they’re scared of reprisals. They don’t know what they can say or who they can say it to. The point of these consultations is to provide them with a space they can take ownership of, which they’re doing. This is a good sign because they might be able to gain a degree of serenity, get some help and integrate everything that’s happened to them so as to move on with their lives in the best conditions possible.
I met children suffering huge distress and who had behavioural issues. It was even harder for the parents — in reality mostly mothers as the fathers were no longer with them — because they didn’t have the strength to cope with their children’s pain and emotions. There aren’t many way children can express how they feel so we’re mainly talking about fairly routine behavioural disorders like bed-wetting. But there are other ones that can be far more serious. Some of the mothers felt they had no other choice than to tie their children up to keep them under control and stop them bothering their families and neighbours. These perfectly good mothers were totally out of their depth and really didn’t know how to manage. So our work was not just treating the child but treating the mother too, and child and mother together, and sometimes even with brothers and sisters.