Integrating rehabilition of torture victims into the public health of Iraq.

For the last three decades torture has been highly prevalent in Iraq. Surveys indicate that close to 50% of households have family members who have been tortured. The traumas of two subsequent wars further add to the traumatisation of the population as does the persistent violence. Re-traumatisation makes healing difficult. As a result trauma-related disorders are likely to be the number one public health problem in Iraq. In December 2004, the author was tasked with the responsibility of planning and implementing rehabilitation activities for victims of torture in Iraq. Basra, in southern Iraq, was chosen as the place for the first clinical treatment and rehabilitation Centre, the Al-Fuad Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (FRCT). The Centre was to function as a training institution for the entire country. In a effort to bridge the gap between vast needs and limited resources, the Centre has begun applying a public health perspective, which means to develop its work in relation to the concepts of illness prevention and health promotion. Treatment and rehabilitation, i.e the secondary and tertiary levels of prevention, can be multiplied through the training of professionals who will be able to establish treatment facilities in new areas of Iraq. By training GPs, psychiatrists and physicians and by expanding FRCT services to victims' families, signs and symptoms of trauma can be addressed at early stages of disorder and long-term illness averted. Human Rights advocacy and legal work at the Centre will address the primary level of prevention through diminishing human rights abuses. Finally, engaging in the reconstruction of the civil society alongside other NGOs and government authorities is to build democracy, which is a cornerstone of health promotion, especially so when the illness panorama is related to violence.