[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.42]this is the Health Report.
[00:04.91]Many Syrians have fled to Lebanon
[00:07.76]to escape the conflict in their homeland.
[00:11.01]Recently, reporter Jamie Dettmer
[00:14.10]visited the Lebanese city of Tripoli,
[00:16.45]where he found a number of Syrian refugees.
[00:20.44]Among them was a six-year-old boy
[00:23.54]from the Syrian town of Hama.
[00:25.78]The boy listed the dangers he faced in Syria
[00:29.47]from exploding rockets.
[00:31.02]He explained the picture he has made of a house
[00:34.71]and an artillery battery.
[00:37.35]Mohamed Khalil is a Psychiatrist,
[00:40.51]specializing in treatment of mental disorders.
[00:43.55]He says it is not unusual for refugee children
[00:47.85]from the two-and-half year long Syrian war to draw weapons.
[00:53.74]He says they also often change quickly
[00:56.95]from hyperactivity behavior to emotional withdraw.
[01:01.74]Doctor Khalil says children
[01:04.18]who have seen inhuman acts and violent death
[01:08.03]often return to behavior seen in younger children.
[01:12.37]He says they might suck their thumbs or wet their beds,
[01:16.76]and he says they often have frightening dreams,
[01:20.26]and experience restless sleep.
[01:23.25]Doctor Khalil says there is a public health crisis
[01:27.29]across the Middle East right now.
[01:29.28]He says it gets little or no attention
[01:32.77]from the media or aid groups.
[01:35.12]There are no good estimates of the numbers of people
[01:39.16]suffering from mental health problems in the Middle East.
[01:42.35]But mental health experts say violence and political unrest
[01:47.15]is causing severe depression, anxiety,
[01:50.76]and post-traumatic stress disorders(PTSD).
[01:54.31]The problems are often left untreated.
[01:57.50]Ahmed Abdellah is a psychiatrist in Egypt.
[02:01.40]He says cultural shame about mental health problems
[02:05.45]can interfere with efforts to help people.
[02:08.89]He says three years of civil conflict in Egypt
[02:12.59]is harming the mental health of its people.
[02:15.69]"The problem is there's a gap
[02:20.20]between what is going on in the society
[02:23.24]and between what is in clinics and in psychiatric institutes,
[02:30.31]especially the governmental institutes.
[02:33.59]Nowadays we have massive numbers of post-traumatic stress disorder cases.
[02:42.45]But you will not find maybe any of these cases
[02:48.44]in psychiatric departments," said Abdellah.
[02:51.19]He also says people are left to suffer when they could be helped,
[02:56.08]but he says more problems are created
[02:59.27]when victims of PTSD do not get treatment.
[03:03.52]"To leave somebody with trauma untreated,
[03:07.02]this opens him and the society to many expectations.
[03:13.75]First of all you are open for more aggression,
[03:18.34]you are open for more stress and displaced stress.
[03:22.19]We are open to more violence, actually.
[03:27.29]If you have maybe tens of thousands,
[03:31.53]maybe more of people who are suffering,
[03:34.34]you could not expect them to work,
[03:37.68]to share, to intervene, to interact," he said.
[03:40.61]And that's the VOA Learning English Health Report.
[03:44.71]For more stories about health,
[03:47.41]go to our website tingvoa.com.
[03:53.65]I'm Christopher Cruise.