University of Leicester psychiatrist Dr Mohammed Al-Uzri flies to Iraq on 15th October for the third National Conference on Mental Health which aims to help to develop mental health strategy for the next five years.
Dr Mohammed Al-Uzri, a Consultant Psychiatrist and Honorary Senior Lecturer with the University of Leicester Medical School, works principally through the Royal College of Psychiatrists, where he chairs the Iraq Subcommittee.
Dr Al-Uzri goes with the knowledge that the work he and colleagues from around the world have done is beginning to bear results.
Recent causes for optimism inside Iraq include the recent establishment of two child mental health departments, in Baghdad and Mosul, benefiting from the training provided to Iraqi mental health workers in the US and UK. This is in addition to a centre in Duhok established in collaboration with the Swedish University of Uppsala.
Psychiatrists in Iraq studied the health needs of Iraqi children in Mosul, suffering from posttraumatic stress, as well as children with attention deficit and hyperactivity in Nasiriyah and primary school children with behavioural problems in Baghdad.
There is a great need for child psychiatrists in Iraq, where almost half of the 26 million population is less than 18 years old. Numbers of psychiatrists have dwindled from 91 in 2006, but there are signs that the position is beginning to be reversed.
Although Iraq lacks mental health clinicians, community services and material resources, Dr Al-Uzri and his colleagues found that there was some innovative work going on there, including using television and radio to raise public awareness about mental health issues.
Mental Health professionals from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), the World Health Organisation, SAMHSA, NGO's and other institutions have been training Iraqi workers since 2003.
The effect of this is beginning to tell. In April a medical education programme on mental health, organised by the RCP, the International Medical Corps and the American Psychiatric Association, took place in Erbil, attracting more than 100 delegates, the largest meeting of its kind held in Iraq to date.