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What used to be a shopping mall in the city of Zaporizhzhia is now the reception area for Ukrainian families fleeing violence and conflict. MSF is there working to meet people’s immediate needs–food, water, medical care–as well as providing critical mental health support to help people processing traumatic experiences.
The unseen toll of war is enormously challenging for families, and psychological support is a critical part of our emergency response in Ukraine. This year, MSF psychologists have treated thousands of Ukrainian people–including hundreds of children–experiencing anxiety, depression, panic attacks, grief, and more.
Many MSF patients in Ukraine have witnessed violence firsthand, lost loved ones, or had their lives uprooted. Far from home, displaced people are striving to regain a sense of normalcy and control over their lives. Our staff make sure survivors feel safe and are connected to the psychological support they need.
“I’m scared that I will fail to do something, or that I’ll do something wrong and won’t make it,” says Kateryna, who was forced to flee with her mother when their village in Irpin was attacked. “I think about it again and again, and it prevents me from doing anything.”
Now, Kateryna and her mother live in a shelter in the far west of the country. Here, she sees an MSF psychologist to help cope with the panic attacks she’s suffered since being forcibly displaced from her home.
“They know everything back home has been destroyed and they can’t get their old lives back. They face a lot of uncertainty,” says Lina Villa, a mental health activity manager for MSF working in Ukraine.
Between April and May this year, MSF psychologists provided over 1,000 mental health sessions for people across Ukraine, including 363 children who participated in group sessions. Survivors of the war are given techniques for coping with stress and processing negative emotions.
Psychological first aid is an essential part of emergency care. In the face of war and other emergency circumstances such as natural disasters or displacement, families and survivors need mental health care in order to recover and rebuild their lives.
This email was sent from the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care.
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