July 1 , 2010

Mental health issues spill into recovery

The suicide rate in New Orleans nearly tripled in the months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. According to the city coroner's office, the rate climbed from nine per 100,000 residents to nearly 27 per 100,000 residents. Now, community organizers and nonprofit workers fear the mental health impacts of the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill might push an already weary population to its breaking point.

Marine biologist and former commercial fisherman Riki Ott, who had her livelihood destroyed because of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 in Alaska, has been traveling throughout the Gulf from Louisiana to Mississippi and Alabama, rallying communities and encouraging victims to take control of their recovery, instead of waiting for BP and the government to guide them. Ott said in the 20 years after the Exxon tanker accident, statistics on divorce rates, substance abuse, violence, and suicide, most notably the suicide of Cordova Mayor Robert Van Brocklin four years after the spill, went through the roof, as a result of dragged out litigation and financial woes, or as she called it mental jail.

I am trying to prevent the human tragedy here, she said. People are just beside themselves with this menace hovering offshore, and the financial stress starts making people go crazy. You have to work to prevent it and empower yourself as a people to take collective action.

Ott has helped organize protests and provided free copies of her book, Sound Truth & Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, to requesting residents, and her meetings have gone from 40 attendees to more than 1,500. She is also lobbying for workforce protection, because many former fisherman are enlisting to help in the clean up process to make ends meet and are becoming ill from oil and dispersant exposure. They are not being properly represented, a situation mirroring what happened in Alaska , Ott said.

The symptoms for chemical poisoning mimic the symptoms of cold and flu, she said. With Exxon, they were able to write this off as cold and flu using an exemption from OSHA (the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and people were left to fend for themselves. This is not what is supposed to happen. É We have agencies that are supposed to be protecting our workforce. They are not supposed to be caving in.

Rob Yin, manager for Disaster Mental Health Services at American Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the organization is still preparing its public mental health planning response to the spill, which as of yet does not include counseling services for the affected communities. The spill is man-made, Yin said, which does not warrant the same disaster mental health response as did Hurricane Katrina. ARC deployed more than 1,000 mental health care professionals to the region to counsel more than 100,000 victims in the wake of Katrina. The Red Cross partnership with government emergency management hasn't yet called for the typical support the organization provides after a normal disaster, according to Carrie Housman, manager, Public Affairs Operations for the organization.

This is not a conventional situation. Its not a clear Red Cross response role, Yin said. Any crisis has a broader mental health impact than a physical health impact. In our culture, we still struggle to focus a significant amount of resources on the mental health piece É Its easier to think about the tangible support.

The charity is distributing coping and resilience building tips on its Web site, Yin said. There seems to be no clear timeline as to when the oil gushing will cease, and rebuilding can begin, he said, which presents unique challenges to organizations trying to help the victims. Also, because the spill is man-made, different emotions come into play.

There are a lot more feelings in the mix. You have anger, frustration, where people might not have those feelings about a tornado, Yin said.

Mary Lee Orr, director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) in Baton Rouge , La. , fears not only a spike in suicide but also substance abuse, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I worry a lot about the emotional health of the people along the Gulf Coast , Orr said. You hear Louisiana is jinxed, or isnt worth saving, or this is a punishment from God. There is a lot of that swirling around, and that has psychological effects on people. Its very scary.

Unlike prior disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Sharon Gauthe, director of the Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO) in Thibodaux , La. , said the spill came without warning for the region. Many suffer from PTSD because of the hurricanes, and are still trying to get back on solid emotional ground.

Its their homes, its their livelihood, Gauthe said. People have such a culture here, where everyone is family. They dont leave this area for centuries and centuries, so this will affect their being depressed. If you cant change your physical situation, medication wont help.

BISCO held community forums in May and June to reach out to the people in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes of Louisiana to assess the residents needs. The charity has also contracted with Catholic Social Services to do case work and offer weekly counseling. Hundreds of people attended the forums, Gauthe said, and shared their anger and frustration with the situation.

They are very fragile right now, she said. We had grown men crying because they want to handle their own lives, and dont know what is going to happen to them.

Gauthe said the organization has applied for emergency grants and receives funding from OXFAM America and the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF). At presstime, BISCO had been granted $5,000 from the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health in New York City , and $2,500 from LDRF. Gauthe said her staff of nine has also taken a 25 percent pay cut to keep its doors open.

Five years after Katrina, our funds are starting to dry up, she said. We will be out of business in a couple of months if we dont get more funding. But if we are not here to do it, who will?

The Salvation Army, based in Alexandria , Va. , tends to the mental health needs of disaster survivors with its Emotional and Spiritual Care Teams, members who have been trained in critical incident stress management and crisis response. Kevin Ellers, territorial disaster services coordinator for the Salvation Army Central Territory in Des Plaines , Ill. , said those who are removed from a disaster situation might not always understand just how critical mental health services are to relief efforts, which leads to them being overlooked.

I think a lot of times, its often missed by administration, Ellers said. Those on the front lines realize that if its not integrated, the survivors and workers themselves get overwhelmed. Sometimes the government doesnt understand that important piece.

Emotional and Spiritual Care Team members work alongside standard disaster relief workers who provide food and shelter, in order to allow survivors to feel more comfortable with opening up and talking about their feelings, Ellers said. Unlike during Katrina, the infrastructure in the Gulf is still standing, although environmental damage is vast, which means the charity will have the opportunity to work with local mental health agencies to treat those struggling. Although many in the region have already survived a major disaster, Ellers said it is important for mental health care workers to treat each person and situation differently.

Everyone has to be looked at in a unique way, and we have to ask Ôwhat makes this disaster particularly hard for this person? he said. When people have been through a similar experience, sometimes they may have learned coping skills and it can be a positive resiliency thing, or it can be the straw that broke the camels back if they are not doing well.

Annie Ducmanis, project manager for the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health, said the spill disaster has not captured mainstream medias attention in the same way as Katrina, Ducmanis said, because the focus has been on the environment instead of the people.

It seems within philanthropy, people are still considering it an ecological event, and arent realizing it will probably destroy many Bayou and fishing communities, she said. These communities were already living on the margin after Rita, Katrina, Ike and Gustav, and this really will be the final straw for these fishing communities. É I dont think the philanthropic community gets that yet. We need to get people clocked on to the humanitarian disaster that is lurking.

The philanthropic world is potentially overlooking the damage being done to the mental health of those affected, according to Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network in New Orleans . Many businesses were just being rebuilt in the past five years, only to have their seafood supply wiped out.

The reason you come to New Orleans is to eat seafood, and there could potentially be no seafood, Sarthou said. People are feeling totally powerless and totally overwhelmed. Social support is equally important as environmental support.

Ducmanis is concerned that those affected in the region might not reach out for the help they need, because mental health issues are often misunderstood.

In terms of mental health and wellness there is a stigma against seeking help and support in the community, Ducmanis said. Its a question of finding what will be relevant and helpful.

The region has been plagued with mental health scars since Katrina, and effective tactics have yet to be implemented, she said. Middle of the road, cut-and-paste tactics for mental health havent been as effective in these communities, Ducmanis said.

The cleanup will take years, Ott said, but the mental impacts will last even longer. This is not like a hurricane. You cant just come back and rebuild, and think you will pull things together again, she said. The people down here are never going to forget this, ever. This is a forever scar on peoples psyche. NPT