Abdu Aziz

Psychiatry resident in Azaz, northern Syria

“Recovering from the loss of a son or a wife is one thing, but when you lose everyone and everything – home, job, security and your family – that is loss at a level that’s unimaginable.

I have a patient, a grandmother, who lost her husband, adult children and their spouses. Now she lives in a camp that gets little aid. She has diabetes, chronic back pain, no one to take care of her and the responsibility to care for 9 grandchildren. She tries to be strong, but her anxiety consumes her. Another patient, a 40-year-old man, was walking down the street last year with his wife and 4 children. The next moment a bomb exploded and killed his entire family in front of his eyes. He lives in a camp in Azaz now. When he comes to see me, he just wails. His crying is uncontrollable.

We have many cases like these. But we are on our own. It’s just me and 1 other resident, trying to see 165 patients a day in 2 shifts. Psychiatry residents are supposed to have supervisors –professional psychiatrists – but our hospital has none, and it serves a population of about 3 million people, in a country at war.

We can’t handle the number of cases that we have. The only solution I see is to train and employ psychosocial workers and more specialists and ensure they are a part of every medical team.”