Reports that 800 Thais could commit suicide dismissed

BANGKOK: -- A senior government psychiatrist has dismissed foreign news reports that suggest that 800 Thais affected by last month's massive tsunami waves were at risk of killing themselves because of stress and depression, called "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder".

"The report is too pessimistic and comes from a western point of view which cannot be applied to the Thai society," said the Department of Mental Health Spokesman, Dr. Taveesilp Wisanuyothin.

The Thai society has mechanisms that help relieve stress, despair and depression, including warm family relationships and religious beliefs, he said.

The foreign news agencies' reports quoted a French psychiatrist who had been working in a health care centre in an affected area in Thailand's southern Andaman region.

The department wants to talk to the French psychiatrist in order to assess whether he has any information that could be useful in devising psychiatric programmes to help relieve the anxiety of the tsunami survivors.

The department’s psychiatrists have advised more than 1,600 people in the country's tsunami-affected provinces, including Phuket, Phang-nga, Krabi, Trang, Ranong and Satun, and so far have found only 21 suffering from serious mental illnesses.

They were all referred to specialist centres and hospitals for proper treatment.

Thailand’s suicide rate is currently 7.7 per 100,000 people, which is regarded as quite low, compared to 40 other developed countries.

-- TNA 2005-01-08

George - a piece with a Headline like that doesn't belong under this topic. The girl is upset for heaven's sake.

Ravisher:- She's upset and needs a few hints on feeling better and dealing with the trauma - George puts up something about "suicides"

I am sincerely sorry for the news clipping that slipped in here. Although the article in some way matched the content in Candyflip's initital posting, I realize that the article was misplaced.

I am using a semi automatic help script that attempts to find already existing threads to a news article, so called contextual matching, and this time I was to quick with the mouse button.

News hunting is a stressful and hectic work, and somtimes I do mistakes. My sincere apologies to Candyflip, and others, who reacted and might been offended of the misplaced article. It was not my intention to hurt someone.

Hope you feel better Candyflip!

Cheers

George