Member-only story
Alleviating the suffering of patients has never been more challenging for me, or more heartrendingly inadequate, than in my experience of working in Moria refugee camp in Greece.
It is a camp designed for a maximum capacity of 3100, variously housing between 6000 and 9000 ² over the last year. Since the EU-Turkey deal in 2016, refugees who would previously have transited through Greece towards the rest of Europe now remain there, through the lengthy and complicated process of applying for asylum ³. Languishing in camps in Greece in inadequate conditions ¹³, the isolation, uncertainty regarding asylum requests and the future, and time to cogitate on the past whilst living in fear, compound the suffering of my patients.
The depths of suffering which I encounter daily here are new and foreign to me. Patient after patient sits before me and tells me of having been tortured, raped, locked up, or forced to watch the rape, murder or torture of family.
The vast majority of patients report insomnia, night terrors, flash-backs, self-harm or suicidal ideation alongside their physical complaints. Many experience visual or auditory hallucinations of their torturers or rapists, or of those they had had to leave behind. Many…
