Healing scars of torture

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 16

Healing scars of torture

By

KARIN STRAND,

of Associated Press, in Stockholm, Sweden

With an influx of more than 10,000 refugees a year, Sweden has become the third nation to offer help for those who come with bodies and minds broken by torture. The first 30 refugees are under treatment at a rehabilitation centre opened on October I'at the Red Cross hospital in Stockholm, and over a two-year trial period the centre expects to take care of about 100 patients and their families. Nobody knows how many of the refugees coming to Sweden are torture victims in need of treatment, but a centre giving sociopsychological help to Latin-Ameri-can refugees in Goteborg, Sweden’s second city, reported that 35 per cent of its clients complain of the effects of torture. Amnesty International, the Lon-don-based human rights organisation, estimates that tens of thousands of people are exposed to torture in nearly 100 countries every year. Drawing upon experiences from similar centres opened in Denmark and Canada in 1982 and 1983 respectively, the head of the Stockholm facility said it will focus on the total care of its patients. “You can’t separate the body from the soul,” said Dr Per Borga,

the chief physician. “One lesson learned from the Danish Rehabilitation Centre is that torture victims are seldom able to cope with standard hospital environments and methods of treatment. “As a result, the Stockholm Centre looks more like a private home, with non-institutional. furniture, art on the walls and flowers in the windows.” Dr Borga explained that a bare room with chilly colours can bring agonising memories to a torture victim. For the same reason, physical examinations and treatment, such as the use of electrodes for an electrocardiogram, must be carried out with extreme care, he said. The facility’s purpose is to go beyond ridding torture victims of lingering symptoms like headaches, fatigue, insomnia, lapses of memory and concentration, restlessness, depression, anxiety and sexual problems. Dr Borga’s staff of 13 physicians, psychologists, physiotherapists, nurses and social workers also want to restore the victim’s selfesteem and sense of personal dignity as a means of breaking down tendencies toward emotional and social isolation and, eventually, bringing the patients and their

families back to normal life. The annual report issued in August by the Danish Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims said it had been able to help 90 per cent of its patients recover or show rapid improvement. “Continuity and a comprehensive approach are key words,” Dr Borga said, stressing that in the psychological treatment it is vital that the patient faces the same doctor all the time. Based on the Danish experience, Dr Borga added, his team will involve the whole family of a patient in the process of treatment because the victim’s symptoms, almost the same for all regardless of the methods of torture they have been exposed to, highly affect spouses or children. All members of the staff at the Stockholm Centre have undergone special training on top of previous experience with refugees under other circumstances or from work in developing countries. The centre will operate on a 7 million kronor (SNZI.4 million) budget for the two-year trial period, with the Stockholm County Council providing 60 per cent of the funds and the balance coming from the Swedish Red Cross, the City of Stockholm and the Swedish Government.