Voodoo priests, doctors on frontline of Haiti’s mental healthcare

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Five years after a massive earthquake rocked Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people and reducing homes to rubble, few survivors would say they were traumatised or suffering depression as a result of the disaster.

Haitians do not tend to use the word ‘depression’ to describe symptoms of mental illness. Instead they may complain of a lack of energy or appetite, insomnia, nightmares, a constricted heart or thinking too much, health workers say. (read more…)