ANALYSIS: What ails Cambodia's mental health system?

Photo: David Longstreath/IRIN, Legacy of the country's status as one of the most heavily bombed nations worldwide.

PHNOM PENH, 12 March 2012 (IRIN) - In Cambodia, the psychological fallout from one of the world's heaviest bombing campaigns, genocide and two decades of conflict, coupled with chronic poverty, have left a heavy mental health burden that medical services are ill-equipped to handle, say experts.

Lack of funding, human resources, national vision and leadership, as well as poor coordination of groups working in mental health, are among the biggest challenges.

Sareth Mon, 58, takes anti-anxiety medication regularly, obtained from the public hospital Preah Kossomak in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Soon after the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, Sareth's one-month-old baby died in her arm as she was no longer able to breastfeed. Her three-year-old daughter died from illness. "There was just no medicine available then," she told IRIN. "I brought them into this world, but could not protect them long enough to keep them alive."

But it is not only the genocide - which killed at least two million people, or one-third of the population then - that haunts survivors, but also the violence that preceded it, said Chhim Sotheara, a psychiatrist and head of one of the main local NGOs working in mental health, Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO).

"We have all been touched by trauma. Our psychological courage has been broken," he said, in a rough translation of the local Khmer concept known as "baksabat". Read the rest of the article see more pictures here.