Mental health teams sent to assist flood victims

BANGKOK, July 31 (TNA) - The Ministry of Public Health has sent mental health teams to assist flood victims in the Thai Northeast, where inundations have begun subsiding. Dr. Boonruang Trairuangworawat, Director-General of the ministry's Department of Mental Health,told journalists on Monday that his department is working together with the provincial public health office in Sakon Nakhon, a flood hardest-hit province currently, to send mental health teams, including psychiatric experts, nurses, social workers, pharmacists and pharmaceutic supply, to provide support to flood victims, especially in Kusumal District of Sakon Nakhon and adjacent Nakae District of Nakhon Phanom Province. According to the senior official, he has instructed local hospitals to reserve pharmaceutic supply to sufficiently serve about 14,000 mental health patients in flood-hit areas for about one month. Meanwhile, local flood victims have been invited to turn the crisis into an opportunity by devoting themselves to be volunteers to join mitigation activities in their areas in order to reduce their stress and to promote love and harmony in their communities. Updated reports said that the flooding situation, caused by Sonca Storm-borne heavy rain recently, has begun receding in inner areas of Sakon Nakhon. (TNA)