DEHRADUN: Faced with the prospect of evacuation from houses they have been living in for decades, a large number of Joshimath residents are now battling health issues such as hypertension and insomnia.
According to the health department data, the number of BP patients is increasing daily. Before the disaster struck Joshimath, the number of BP patients in the city was around 80 which has increased to more than 385.
Data from the health department shows that there has been a sharp increase in the number of BP patients after the disaster. So far, more than 2,000 persons have been screened in community health centres and health camps, out of which 15 per cent, i.e., more than 300 were BP patients.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, psychiatrist Jyotsna Naithwal, Medical Officer, Joshimath CHC, said, “The sudden disaster has shaken the mind of the residents and they are unable to forget the shock of being evacuated from their cracked homes, due to which they are facing conditions like insomnia, hypertension and blood pressure”.
Jyotsna further said that concerns of the affected people living in relief camps or relatives’ homes have increased. “Due to concerns like house and shop demolition, employment, children’s education, fodder for cattle, they are facing problems like lack of proper sleep, loss of appetite, irritability. It is natural for stress to increase, which is making them BP patients”.
Rahul Gondwal, MD (Psychiatry), who camped at Joshimath from Dehradun, has also examined dozens of patients who have suffered mental trauma from this natural calamity in five special camps since January 4.
Rahul, who has been serving in different parts of Joshimath, told TNIE, “It is a type of adjustment disorder that comes due to neurochemical changes in the brain”.
Elaborating on the mental state of the victim, he said, “In a disaster situation, when a person feels that his decade-old house is no longer there, memories attached to that house come, then with it comes a ‘stressful situation’ that turns into insomnia”. Along with this, uncontrollable and negative thoughts also burst. “We insisted on counselling as well as medication in such a situation,” he added.
Rising health issues
500% increase in BP and insomnia patients after disaster in Joshimath
Uncontrollable and negative thoughts capture minds that have never experienced such trauma in life
Neuro-chemical changes in the brain occur in the event of a disaster which leads to a stressful situation